A casino is a gambling establishment where people can place bets on games of chance. Typically, these games include dice, card games like poker and blackjack, and table games such as roulette, craps and baccarat. Some casinos also feature a number of slot machines. Casinos are often very elaborate, with fountains, pyramids and towers adorning their exteriors. In addition, they may offer high-end entertainment options such as restaurants and hotels.

The word casino derives from the Italian word for “little house.” Casinos are designed to be small, intimate venues that allow people to gamble without attracting too much attention from the police and other authorities. In fact, the first modern casinos were small clubhouses for Italian immigrants. When Nevada legalized gambling in the 1930s, casino owners realized that they could make a fortune by creating destinations that would draw visitors from across the United States.

In a casino, players compete against the house and not each other. As a result, the odds are that the house will win more money than any individual player. This is known as the house edge. A casino’s advantage can be very slight – lower than two percent, in fact – but it adds up over the millions of bets placed in a casino each year.

In order to guard against cheating, casinos have numerous surveillance systems in place. These include a network of catwalks that allows security personnel to look directly down on the tables and slot machines, through one-way glass. In addition, video cameras are located in the ceiling of every change window and doorway. These are constantly monitored by security workers in a room filled with banks of monitors.