A casino is a large building where people can gamble and play games of chance. It’s a popular form of entertainment, with billions of dollars raked in by casinos every year. While musical shows, shopping centers and lavish hotels help bring in the customers, the vast majority of the profits come from gambling. Casinos feature games such as blackjack, roulette, baccarat and video poker.
Because there are large amounts of currency handled in a casino, there’s always the possibility that patrons and staff will cheat or steal, either in collusion or independently; for this reason casinos have extensive security measures. Security cameras throughout the casino are the most obvious, but there are also many other ways to keep track of what’s happening inside the building: table managers and pit bosses watch over the tables with a close eye for suspicious betting patterns; slots have built-in microcircuitry that keeps track of the amount wagered minute by minute so the machines can be audited quickly; and roulette wheels and dice have electronic monitoring to discover any statistical deviation from their expected results.
Casinos also spend a lot of money to encourage big-spending gamblers with “comps,” or complimentary goods and services. Free hotel rooms, dinners, show tickets and airline fares are commonly offered to high rollers. Some of these comps are calculated based on the amount of time players spend at slot machines and their average bet size; others are calculated based on the total amount of money they’ve won or lost.