A casino is an establishment for gambling. Although casinos often include restaurants, hotels, spas, shopping centers and other entertainment amenities, the vast majority of their revenue comes from the games of chance: slot machines, blackjack, roulette, poker, craps and more. This article explores how casinos entice patrons to gamble, how the business has changed over time and what makes some casinos more successful than others.
Casinos often lure customers with lavish inducements. The most obvious is free spectacular entertainment and food offered to big bettors (often called comps). Lesser bettors can receive perks like discounted hotel rooms, tickets to shows or even airline or limo service. Comps are designed to increase the amount of money that gamblers spend at a casino.
Because a casino is in the business of making money, it is vulnerable to fraud and theft. To counter this, casinos employ a number of security measures. These may include cameras that monitor patrons and staff for any suspicious behavior, specially trained pit bosses who oversee table games to make sure no one is cheating or stealing and “chip tracking” where betting chips have built-in microcircuitry that allows the casino to know minute by minute exactly how much is being wagered on each game.
For most of America’s history, the growth of the modern casino was stalled by state antigambling laws. This changed in the 1980s, when several states legalized casinos and Native American tribes opened gaming facilities on their reservations. Today, there are more than 3,000 casinos worldwide.