Beneath the flashing lights, free drinks and stage shows, casinos are places engineered to slowly bleed patrons of their cash. Something about gambling — it could be the potential for huge jackpots or the fact that people are surrounded by money — seems to encourage cheating, theft and scamming. That’s why casinos spend a lot of time and money on security.
Casino security begins on the casino floor, where dealers keep their eyes on the games and patrons to make sure everything is as it should be. They can quickly spot blatant cheating such as palming, marking or switching cards or dice, and are trained to watch for betting patterns that may indicate cheating. Each person on the casino floor also has a higher-up, who watches them as they work and notifies them of suspicious behavior.
For games that involve skill, such as blackjack, the house edge and variance (variance is the standard deviation of expected return) are calculated by mathematicians or computer programmers hired by the casinos. This information is crucial to the success of a casino, as it helps the owners determine how much profit they can expect to make.
Casinos also use a number of other tricks to attract gamblers. For example, they arrange the slot machines and table games in a maze-like fashion so that wandering patrons are constantly enticed by more gambling options. They also use a variety of lighting techniques, including more than 15,000 miles of neon tubing to light the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Finally, they offer complimentary goods and services to high-volume players, called comps. These can include free rooms, meals, drinks and show tickets.