A casino is a place where people can play a variety of games of chance for money. Although casinos may add a wide variety of other amenities to attract guests, such as restaurants, stage shows and lighted fountains, the profits generated by gambling games alone provide billions in revenues to the owners of casinos.
Like any other business, a casino is a profit-making enterprise and it must have an edge to offset the expenses of operation. The house edge is the statistical advantage that the casino has over any individual game, regardless of the skill or knowledge of the player. This advantage can be very small, less than two percent, but over millions of bets it can generate enormous profits for a casino.
Because of this virtual assurance of profit, casinos can afford to offer generous perks to big bettors. These perks, called comps, are free goods or services such as dinners, hotel rooms and tickets to shows. They can also include limo service and airline tickets, depending on how much a patron spends.
In addition to cameras, casinos use a variety of other security measures. The dealers’ shuffles and dealings, the locations of the betting spots on the tables and other expected patterns are constantly monitored by security personnel. In addition, the lights and noise of a casino create an atmosphere that makes it difficult for gamblers to lose track of time. This is a major reason why many casinos do not have clocks on the walls.