A casino is a place where people can gamble for money. While musical shows, lighted fountains and shopping centers help draw customers in, the bulk of a casino’s profits come from gambling. Slot machines, roulette, blackjack, craps, baccarat and other games of chance account for the billions of dollars casinos earn in profits each year.
Though many of the games at a casino involve a high degree of skill, the house has a mathematical edge over the players. The odds of winning and losing are calculated by the game’s rules, and some machines have built-in microcircuitry that keeps track of the amount wagered. These and other security measures allow casinos to monitor patrons and catch cheating. Cameras mounted in the ceiling, for example, provide a “eye-in-the-sky” view of tables and slots; they can be adjusted to focus on suspicious patrons by workers at a control room filled with banks of security monitors.
For much of their history, casinos were illegal. Mob involvement in the business made them a target for law enforcement, but real estate investors and hotel chains with deeper pockets bought out the mobsters and turned casinos into the profitable businesses they are today. In the 1990s, casinos further stepped up their use of technology, from video cameras in public areas to sophisticated systems that oversee the games themselves. Chip tracking, for instance, allows the casino to see the exact amounts bet minute-by-minute and warn staff when a player attempts an anomaly; roulette wheels are electronically monitored regularly to discover any statistical deviations from their expected results.