A casino is a facility that accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are often placed near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships and other vacation attractions. Some casinos are known for hosting live entertainment events, such as concerts and sporting events.
Casino History
The term originally meant a small villa, summerhouse or pavilion built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. There are examples of such casinos at Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese. During the 19th century, the term casino came to include other more public buildings where pleasurable activities, including gambling and sports, took place. An example of this type of building is the Newport Casino. In modern Italian, this term designates a bordello (also called "casa chiusa", literally "closed house"), while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent.
Gambling in casinos
In most jurisdictions, gambling is limited to persons over the age of majority (21 years of age in most of the United States and 18 to 21 in most other countries where casinos are permitted). Customers may gamble by playing slot machines or other games of chance (e.g., craps, roulette, baccarat) and some skill (eg., blackjack, poker). Game rules usually have mathematically-determined odds that ensure the house retains an advantage over the players. This advantage is called the edge. Payout is the percentage given to players. In games such as poker, the house takes a commission (a "rake") on bets players make against each other. Playing with house money refers to the situation where a winning player is placing bets with money that has been won from the casino.
Security
Traditionally, casinos have had a major concentration on security. Large amounts of currency move through a casino, tempting people to cheat the system. Security today consists of cameras located throughout the property operated by highly trained individuals who attempt to locate cheating and stealing by both players and employees.
Modern casino security is usually divided between a physical security force, which patrols the casino floor and responds to calls for assistance and reports of criminal and/or suspicious activities, and a specialized surveillance department, that operates the casino's closed circuit television (CCTV) system in an effort to detect any misconduct by both guests and employees alike. Both of these specialized casino security departments work very closely with each other to ensure the safety of both guests and the casino's assets.
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