A casino is a place where people can gamble on games of chance or skill, or just watch others gamble. It’s a very big business, and casinos earn huge profits from their patrons. This allows them to build spectacular buildings, giant fountains and replicas of famous landmarks. However, a casino is not a charitable organization, and every game has a built in advantage for the house, which is mathematically determined and is called the house edge.
As a result, it’s very rare for a casino to lose money on any particular day, and they can afford to give away free hotel rooms, meals, drinks, concerts and other extravagant inducements. Some high rollers even get limo service and airline tickets. The word casino comes from the Italian word for little room, a reference to the small private clubs where the wealthy used to meet to gamble in Europe before the 16th century. These clubhouses, or ridotti, were sometimes built on the grounds of palaces.
Modern casinos are very large and often sprawl over several floors with a variety of gambling activities. The most popular casino games are slot machines, roulette, baccarat and blackjack. These games are played with chips that are electronically tracked by specialized surveillance systems. This high-tech “eye in the sky” enables security personnel to monitor the casino from a room filled with banks of surveillance monitors.
Casinos also make their money by offering comps, or complimentary goods and services, to their regular customers. This may be free hotel rooms, dinners or show tickets, but it can also include items such as cigarette lighters and free drinks at the tables. A player’s comp rating is based on how much he or she gambles and how long they stay in the casino.
Although gambling probably predates recorded history, and primitive proto-dice and carved knuckle bones have been found at ancient archaeological sites, the modern casino as we know it didn’t take off until the late 1600s, when a gambling craze swept across Europe. People loved the idea of having a variety of games all under one roof, and this led to the establishment of the first gambling establishments.
As more and more states legalized gambling, mobster money poured into the new casinos, and many mobsters became involved in the operation. But, as the industry grew, legitimate businesses such as real estate developers and hotel chains bought out the mafia’s interests and started to operate their own casinos without mob interference. Federal crackdowns and the fear of losing a gaming license for even the slightest hint of mob involvement keep the mob out of many casinos today. The United States has more than 1,000 casinos. Many of these are concentrated in a few cities, including Las Vegas and Atlantic City.