Whether it’s hitting the slots, putting on your best poker face or throwing dice at a craps table, few things beat a casino for satisfying that gambling itch. But the best ones don’t come cheap. For that reason many of the world’s most famous casinos are located in the most expensive hotels and resorts.
Gambling has been a part of human culture for millennia. Archeologists have found wooden blocks used to play games of chance in 2300 BC China; dice appeared in Rome around 500 AD; and playing cards made their way into European continental casinos by the early 1600s.
Casinos accept all bets within an established limit, which means that a casino will never lose more than it can afford to pay out in winnings. This virtual assurance of gross profit makes it possible for casinos to offer big bettors extravagant inducements, such as free spectacular entertainment, chauffeured transportation and elegant living quarters.
In addition to cameras and other technological security measures, most casinos are wired for electronic monitoring, allowing them to oversee bets minute-by-minute and spot any statistical deviation quickly. In the case of roulette, for example, the entire wheel is electronically monitored to discover any deviation from its expected results.
In the United States legal casinos can be found in Nevada, where they have been operated since 1931, and in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where casino-style gambling was first introduced in 1978. In Europe the legal casino industry was dramatically expanded during the 1990s, when nearly every country changed its laws to permit them.
