A Casino is a place where people can gamble on games of chance. It is often a themed attraction with musical shows, fountains, shopping areas and elaborate hotels. However, the main draw of a casino is gambling, and it is this that provides the billions of dollars in profits that casinos generate every year. Casinos are built on a basic advantage for the house, which can be as small as two percent for some games and as large as five percent or more for others. This advantage is what pays for the hotel, the fancy restaurants and the enormous towers and replicas of famous landmarks.
Casinos try to lure customers with bright and sometimes gaudy floor and wall coverings, music that varies in pitch and volume to appeal to different taste and a lack of clocks on the walls (to make patrons lose track of time). They also use red to stimulate appetite and encourage gambling.
Casino security is a major concern because of the large amount of money that is handled within a casino, and it is a common temptation for staff or patrons to cheat or steal in collusion or independently. To combat this, casinos have advanced surveillance systems that offer a high-tech eye-in-the-sky, and cameras in the ceiling monitor tables, change windows and doors; betting chips have built-in microcircuitry to enable casinos to keep tabs on them minute by minute; roulette wheels are electronically monitored to discover any statistical deviation from their expected results.