A casino is a place where people can gamble for money. While music shows, lighted fountains, shops and lavish hotels help attract customers, the vast majority of the billions of dollars a year that casinos earn come from games of chance like slot machines, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps and keno.
Gambling houses have been around for millennia, dating back as far as 2300 BC China with wooden blocks, and 500 AD Rome with dice and playing cards. In the modern era, large hotels with gambling facilities have become synonymous with casinos, with names like Caesar’s Palace and the Monte Carlo.
Today’s casinos have elaborate theme parks, restaurants and nightclubs, but they would not be able to survive without the games of chance that bring in the dollars. Many casinos offer free drinks to keep the patrons fed and happy, and they may give out hotel rooms, show tickets and airline fares to the big spenders who will continue to wager on their products.
Given the amounts of cash involved, casinos are vulnerable to cheating by both patrons and staff members. To prevent this, most casinos employ security measures that begin on the gaming floor, where casino employees watch over each table and observe betting patterns that could signal cheating. In addition, most casinos have a dedicated surveillance department that operates a high-tech “eye in the sky” system to monitor activity throughout the building. This system can be adjusted by security workers to focus on a suspicious patron, if necessary.