A Casino, also known as a gambling house, is a large establishment that offers a variety of games of chance for its patrons. These include slot machines, table games and card games such as blackjack, roulette, baccarat, poker and craps. Casinos are also famous for their large bonuses and rewards programs. This attracts new players and encourages loyalty from existing customers.
Given the amount of money that is handled within a casino, it’s no wonder that security is of paramount concern. In addition to traditional security cameras, casinos often use technology to supervise the actual gaming. For example, betting chips are laced with microcircuitry that allows the casino to track bets minute by minute and warn of any suspicious patterns; roulette wheels are electronically monitored to reveal any statistical deviation from their expected results.
Some of these technological measures are fairly obvious: the dealers on the floor are heavily trained to look for blatant cheating such as palming or marking cards or dice. But a more subtle aspect of casino security is the regularity and predictability of game play. For example, dealers shuffle and deal the cards in certain patterns, and patrons place their bets in predictable locations on the table. These are all easy for the security staff to spot, because they happen all the time.
A casino is a popular attraction for tourists, and it can be found in many places. Las Vegas is probably the best known of all, but there are also casinos in other places, including Atlantic City, New Jersey; Paris, France; Macau, China; and a number of Indian reservations.