What is a Casino?
2 min readA casino (also called a gambling house or a gaming room) is an establishment where people can gamble. Casinos offer a wide variety of games, including roulette, blackjack, baccarat, video poker and more. Some casinos also have hotels, restaurants and/or spas. Some casinos are owned by governments, while others are independent.
Gambling is a popular pastime that has been around for millennia. Archeological finds show that dice were used in China as early as 2300 BC, and card games appeared soon after in Rome. By the 1600s, a game still played today, known as baccarat, had become a fixture in European society.
In modern times, the glitz and glamour of casino entertainment draw in massive crowds of tourists. While musical shows, lighted fountains and shopping centers help casinos keep their customers happy, most of the billions in profits they rake in each year are generated by games of chance. Slot machines, craps, keno, roulette and table games like blackjack and baccarat make up the bulk of casinos’ income.
Because of the large amounts of money that are handled within casinos, patrons and employees may be tempted to cheat or steal, either in collusion with each other or on their own. To minimize these risks, casinos devote a great deal of time and effort to security measures. Besides a staff of surveillance officers, they employ sophisticated technology to oversee games themselves: chips with built-in microcircuitry allow for monitoring of the exact amount bet minute by minute; and roulette wheels are electronically monitored to quickly discover any statistical deviations from expected results.