A casino is a building or room where gambling activities take place. Casinos provide an array of gambling opportunities, including slot machines, baccarat, blackjack, roulette, craps, and keno. They also feature entertainment, shopping centers and lavish hotels. Casinos are popular in many countries worldwide.

Most casinos offer a variety of games that depend mostly on chance, with some skill involved (like blackjack and video poker). Most of these games have mathematically determined odds that give the house a permanent advantage over players, or, more precisely, a negative expected value (from a player’s perspective). This advantage is known as the “house edge.” Casinos make their profit by taking a percentage of total wagers or charging an hourly fee for playing tables.

Due to the large amounts of money handled within a casino, both patrons and staff may be tempted to cheat or steal, either in collusion or independently. As a result, casinos spend considerable time and resources on security measures. For example, some casinos have high-tech eye-in-the-sky surveillance systems that allow security workers to monitor the entire casino from a control room.

In the past, mobsters controlled most of the casinos in Nevada. As organized crime gained a reputation for violence, legitimate businessmen shied away from the industry. But the mob had plenty of cash from extortion, loan-sharking and other illegal activities. During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of American states amended their antigambling laws to permit casinos on Native American reservations or in other locales outside of Las Vegas.