A casino is a place where gambling activities take place, especially card games, dice games, and slot machines. A casino may also contain restaurants and stage shows. Casinos are often decorated with bright, stimulating colors, particularly red, to distract players and make them lose track of time.
Gambling almost certainly predates recorded history, with primitive protodice (cut knuckle bones) and even carved six-sided dice being discovered. But the first modern casinos sprang up in the late 19th century, starting in Europe, where organized crime syndicates had lots of money from their drug dealing, extortion, and other rackets. They were willing to put up capital to lure Americans away from the seamy underworld of illegal gaming houses.
Today casinos are found worldwide, with the largest number in the United States, many of which are located in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Other large casino centers include Paris, London, Macau, and Rio de Janeiro. Casinos are also widely found on American Indian reservations, where they are not subject to state antigambling laws.
While casinos offer a wide variety of games, they all have one thing in common: the house has at all times a mathematical advantage over the players. This is usually reflected in the house edge, or expected value, which is uniformly negative from the player’s perspective. Because of this, casinos spend a great deal of time and money on security. In addition to cameras and other technological measures, casino patrons are required to follow strict rules of conduct and behavior.
