A casino is a place where people can play gambling games. These establishments usually offer free food and drinks to patrons, along with stage shows. They also use chips instead of real money to make it harder for people to cheat or steal.
There are more than 1,000 casinos in the United States, and their number is growing steadily as more states legalize gambling. While Las Vegas is the best known, other cities including Atlantic City and Chicago have large casinos. Some casinos are even part of resorts and cruise ships.
Casinos make their money by offering games that have built-in statistical advantages for the house. These are called house edges and variance, and they are carefully calculated by mathematicians and computer programmers who work for the casinos and are known as gaming analysts. The results of their calculations are then used by casino managers to determine how much profit each game will make.
Something about the presence of large amounts of money seems to encourage gamblers and casino employees to cheat or steal, either in collusion or independently. This is why casinos spend a lot of time and money on security. Casinos employ guards and cameras to monitor the floor, but they also go further by using technologies such as chip tracking (betting chips with built-in microcircuitry that enable casinos to oversee the amount of money wagered minute-by-minute) and electronic monitoring of roulette wheels to discover any statistical deviation from normal results.