A casino, also known as a gambling house or a gaming establishment, is a place where people can gamble and play various games of chance. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships and other tourist attractions. In the United States, there are over 1,000 legal casinos. Unlike the opulent venues in Las Vegas, many casinos are relatively small and may only have a few hundred slot machines and table games.

While musical shows, lighted fountains and shopping centers help to draw in customers, the billions of dollars in profits that casinos generate each year come primarily from gambling. The casinos’ primary revenue streams include games such as blackjack, poker, slots, roulette, craps, baccarat and bingo.

Casinos are usually staffed with trained security personnel who keep an eye on the patrons and games to ensure that everything is running as it should. Many of the tables in a typical casino have special cameras mounted above them that give security workers a high-tech “eye-in-the-sky” view of the entire floor. The camera systems can be adjusted to zoom in on suspicious players and even spot tiny nuances in their behavior, such as the way a player’s eyes move or how they lean.

Some casinos also offer comps to regular customers, which are free goods or services that are based on the amount of money the player spends. Examples of comps include free hotel rooms, meals, show tickets and airline tickets.