Casino, also known as a Gambling House or a Gaming Establishment, is an establishment for gambling. Typically, the term is used to refer to facilities for certain types of gambling like roulette, craps, or poker. Often, casinos are combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shops and/or other tourist attractions. In military and civilian usage, the term is sometimes used to refer to an officers’ mess.

Casinos make money by charging a small percentage on each bet that a patron places. This edge can be as low as two percent, but it adds up over the millions of bets placed in a casino and gives the operators the money to build extravagant hotels, fountains, pyramids and towers and to create impressive replicas of famous landmarks. Casinos also earn a lot of money from video poker machines and slot machines, which have their own built in statistical advantage that is lower than the house edge. Casinos hire mathematicians and computer programmers who specialize in gaming analysis to help them understand these advantages so that they can maximize profits on their various games.

Many casino gambling games are not played against the house but rather against other patrons, and so require a high level of security. Casinos employ a team of employees who keep their eyes on each game, looking for any suspicious betting patterns that might indicate cheating or stealing. Some casinos also have elaborate surveillance systems that offer a high-tech “eye in the sky” and can be adjusted to focus on any particular patron or table.