Casinos are entertainment venues that offer a variety of games of chance for gamblers. While musical shows, lighted fountains, shopping centers and lavish hotels may make them seem more like indoor amusement parks for adults, the billions in profits casinos generate annually come from gambling activities such as slots, blackjack, roulette and poker.

Despite the large amounts of money handled within a casino, something about gambling seems to encourage cheating and stealing by patrons and employees. This is a big reason why casinos spend so much time, effort and money on security. Cameras that resemble eyes-in-the-sky are often used to monitor every table, window and doorway. Many casinos even have separate rooms that feature banks of security monitors allowing security workers to watch every aspect of the gambling area at once.

In addition to cameras, casinos also employ mathematicians and computer programmers who compute house edges for every game. This information allows them to predict how much profit they can expect to make based on the expected percentage of play that will result in winnings, and losses.

In the United States, casinos are mostly concentrated in cities such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, although several other states now have legalized gaming. In 2005, according to research conducted by Roper Reports GfK NOP and TNS, the typical casino gambler was a forty-six year old female from a household with an above average income who went gambling in the company of friends or family members. The majority of those surveyed said that they go to the casino to have fun and that they enjoyed the experience.