What Is a Casino?

A casino is an establishment for gambling. Most casinos offer a variety of gambling products such as blackjack, craps, roulette, and video poker. Some casinos also feature shows and fine dining restaurants. In the United States, casinos are most often found in cities such as Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They are also common in many American Indian reservations, which are exempt from state antigambling laws.

Gambling is legal in most US states, though some have banned it completely or limited it to specific games or activities. Some jurisdictions are known for their poker rooms, while others focus on horse racing, bingo, and lottery play. The popularity of these establishments has led to their spread into the Internet, with some sites offering both virtual and land-based casino games.

Casinos make money by allowing patrons to gamble within limits set by the house. Each game has a mathematical expectation that, over time, will result in a loss to the house; this is called the house edge or vigorish. Some games, however, have a skill element, and players possessing sufficient skills can eliminate the inherent long-term disadvantage of these games. These players are referred to as advantage players.

To ensure their profits, casinos use technology to supervise the games. For example, in some casinos, betting chips have built-in microcircuitry that interacts with electronic systems to enable the house to oversee the exact amounts wagered minute-by-minute and to warn staff about any anomaly; roulette wheels are electronically monitored regularly to discover quickly any statistical deviation from their expected results.