A Casino is a venue where gambling takes place. Modern casinos are like indoor amusement parks for adults, with the bulk of their entertainment coming from gambling games. Slot machines, black jack, roulette, craps and keno are the most popular games that bring in billions of dollars in profits each year for their owners.

Gambling in some form or another has been a part of human civilization for centuries. Ancient Mesopotamia, Rome, Greece and Elizabethan England all have stories of entertainment based on games of chance or skill.

Many of the world’s best known casinos are located in cities that specialize in tourism. Las Vegas, Monte Carlo and Atlantic City are the largest casino destinations, but there are casinos in other cities as well. These casinos often have the biggest selection of games, such as thousands of slot machines and hundreds of tables. Many of these casinos have special rooms for high rollers and VIP patrons.

Casinos also have elaborate surveillance systems that use cameras to watch every table, window and doorway. These cameras can be adjusted to focus on suspicious patrons by security workers in a room filled with banks of monitors. The cameras are usually mounted in the ceiling above the casino floor and can look directly down through one-way glass on the activities at the tables and slot machines.

Some casinos offer traditional Far Eastern games, such as sic bo (which spread to several European and American casinos during the 1990s), fan-tan and pai gow. In addition, some casinos have tables for less common dice games such as baccarat and chemin de fer.