A casino, also called a gaming house or a gambling house, is an establishment for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shops, and other tourist attractions. In the United States, casinos are regulated by state law. They must have a license from the state in which they operate. Casinos must also have a security force to protect patrons and property.
The security force at a casino is usually divided into a physical security department and a specialized surveillance department that operates the casino’s closed circuit television system, or “eye in the sky.” In addition to these measures, many casinos employ rules of conduct and behavior designed to deter cheating and theft by both players and staff.
Because of the large amounts of money handled within a casino, both patrons and employees may be tempted to cheat or steal, either in collusion or independently. This is why modern casinos have a variety of security measures in place, including cameras, to prevent these actions.
The laws of probability dictate that a casino must make a profit on the games it offers, but the size of this profit varies by game. To determine the mathematical expectancy of a particular game, a casino must calculate its house edge and variance. The mathematicians and computer programmers that perform this work for casinos are known as gaming mathematicians and gaming analysts. The average house edge for a casino is 5.26%, but this number can vary significantly between casinos and games.