A casino is a place where people play games of chance for money. Although many casinos add a lot of other amenities to draw in customers, gambling is the primary activity that generates the billions of dollars in profits the industry brings in each year. While musical shows, lighted fountains and shopping centers may give the impression that casinos are like indoor amusement parks for adults, they would not exist without the games of chance. Slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps and keno are the gambling activities that provide the bulk of the revenue for casinos.
Casinos first became popular in America after the Civil War when miners who were chasing gold in the Sierra Nevada took a break from their work to gamble and socialize with friends in local card rooms. The first land-based casino in the US opened on Freemont Street in Las Vegas in 1906. Since then, casinos have grown from small card rooms to massive resorts that rival hotels in size and offerings.
In addition to offering a large variety of gambling activities, casinos also offer other amenities such as restaurants, hotels, night clubs and spas. Most of these facilities are open to the public, although some are private, and some limit access to gamblers only. Casinos are most common in American states that allow gambling, but there are also some in Europe and on Native American reservations.
Besides the usual table games and slots, some casinos offer other, more exotic games. These include the traditional Far Eastern games of sic bo and fan-tan, as well as Asian poker varieties and baccarat. These games are typically played with numbered balls, and the casino will reward its most frequent and high-spending players with comps such as free hotel stays, meals or tickets to shows. Ask a casino employee or the information desk to find out how you can get a comp.
Something about gambling encourages people to cheat and steal in order to boost their winnings, which is why casinos spend a huge amount of time, effort and money on security. They have a dedicated staff of people who monitor the patrons and the games, looking for any signs of cheating. They have also incorporated technology into some of the games themselves. For example, betting chips have built-in microcircuitry to enable casinos to track the exact amounts wagered minute by minute; and roulette wheels are electronically monitored to detect any deviations from their expected outcomes.
A casino’s security staff is generally divided into two areas, a physical force and a specialized surveillance department. The former patrols the casino floor and responds to calls for assistance or reports of definite criminal activity, while the latter monitors the casino’s closed circuit television system and specializes in the use of remote sensing technologies. Using the latest technologies, these departments can keep track of almost every movement in the casino’s interior spaces. They are often housed in heavily guarded buildings. Some casinos even have catwalks in the ceiling, from which surveillance personnel can look down on the gambling tables through one-way glass.
