A Casino is a gambling establishment that offers a variety of games of chance. A casino can be found in many places, but the one most known is Las Vegas.

Gambling likely predates recorded history, with primitive protodice (cut knuckle bones) and carved six-sided dice found in ancient archaeological sites. But the concept of a single place where patrons could find a wide array of ways to gamble under one roof didn’t emerge until the 16th century, when a gambling craze swept Europe and Italian aristocrats created “ridotti” where they could play card and table games to their hearts’ content.

Casinos make money by charging a percentage of the total amount of bets placed on each game to players, which is called the “house edge.” This built in advantage means that, over time, the casino will always win more than it loses. To help ensure that they do, casinos offer big bettors extravagant inducements like free spectacular entertainment, luxury transportation, reduced-fare hotel rooms and other perks.

Casinos also have high-tech surveillance systems that allow security workers in a room filled with banks of monitors to watch the entire casino at once, or even focus on specific suspicious patrons. Elaborately rigged slot machines also ensure that the payouts are determined randomly by computer chips, rather than being controlled by humans. Even so, the sheer number of people in a casino can create a kind of mob mentality that encourages cheating, bribery and other forms of criminal behavior, which is why casinos spend a lot of time and money on security.