Casino Wikipedia
Factors influencing gambling tendencies include sound, odour and lighting. According to an analysis of 4,222 gamblers during a two-year period, only 13.5% of them ended up actually winning money at the casino. Payout is the percentage of funds ("winnings") returned to players. In games such as poker where players play against each other, the house takes a commission called the rake. Most games have mathematically determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an advantage over the players.
Over the past few decades, casinos have developed many different marketing techniques for attracting and maintaining loyal patrons. The physical security force usually patrols the casino and responds to calls for assistance and reports of suspicious or definite criminal activity. Modern casino security is usually divided between a physical security force and a specialized surveillance department. Security cameras located throughout the casino are the most basic measure. Unofficially defined, a "casino" typically denotes a well-established and professional gambling establishment that is generally lawful but exclusively caters to foreign players. Based on revenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey, ranks second, and the Chicago region best non gamstop casinos third.
The first known European gambling house, not called a casino although meeting the modern definition, was the Ridotto, established in Venice, Italy, in 1638 by the Great Council of Venice to provide controlled gambling during the carnival season. From Ancient Mesopotamia, Greeks and Romans to Napoleon's France and Elizabethan England, much of history is filled with stories of entertainment based on games of chance. In military and non-military usage, a casino (Spanish) or Kasino (German) is an officers' mess. The Catalina Casino, on Santa Catalina Island, California, has never been used for traditional games of chance, which were already outlawed in California by the time it was built. The term casinó may mean a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club.
The term casino is of Italian origin, from the root word casa meaning "house." Originally, the term referred to a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club. These are not the extent of the hazards casino workers may be exposed to, but every location is different. Casinos are subject to specific regulations for worker safety, as casino employees are both at greater risk for cancers resulting from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and musculoskeletal injuries from repetitive motions while running table games over many hours. When it opened in 1989, The Mirage was the first casino to use cameras full-time on all table games. A specialized surveillance department operates the casino's closed-circuit-television system, known in the industry as the eye in the sky.
Both of these specialized casino security departments work very closely with each other to ensure the safety of both guests and the casino's assets, and have been quite successful in preventing crime. Given the large amounts of currency handled within a casino, both patrons and staff may be tempted to cheat and steal, in collusion or independently; casinos have security measures to prevent this. In Vietnam, the term "casinos" encompasses gambling activities within the country. Native American gaming has been responsible for a rise in the number of casinos outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Singapore is an up-and-coming destination for visitors wanting to gamble, although there are currently only two casinos (both foreign owned), in Singapore. The former Portuguese colony of Macau, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China since 1999, is a popular destination for visitors who wish to gamble.
Macau is the largest gambling market in the world, having surpassed Las Vegas in terms of revenue. The design of a casino, including factors like sound, odour, and lighting, is often carefully controlled to encourage gambling. The percentage of funds returned to players as winnings is known as the payout.
Casinò di Campione is located in the tiny Italian enclave of Campione d'Italia, within Ticino, Switzerland. The Monte Carlo Casino features in Ben Mezrich's 2005 book Busting Vegas, where a group of students beat the casino out of nearly $1 million. The song was inspired by the exploits of English trickster Charles Wells, who in 1891 "broke the bank" on many occasions on the first two of his three trips to the casino. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
In addition to cameras and other technological measures, casinos also enforce security through rules of conduct and behavior; for example, players at card games are required to keep the cards they are holding in their hands visible at all times. Some casinos also have catwalks in the ceiling above the casino floor, which allow surveillance personnel to look directly down, through one way glass, on the activities at the tables and slot machines. Machine-based gaming is only permitted in land-based casinos, restaurants, bars and gaming halls, and only subject to a licence. Video lottery machines (slot machines) have become one of the most popular forms of gambling in casinos. Casinos have been linked to organised crime, with early casinos in Las Vegas originally dominated by the American Mafia and in Macau by Triad syndicates. Many casinos use a loyalty rewards program used to track players' spending habits and target their patrons more effectively, by sending mailings with free slot play and other promotions.
The Marina Bay Sands is the second most expensive standalone casino in the world, at a price of US$6.8 billion, and is among the world's ten most expensive buildings. Its name comes from the Dragonara Point, the peninsula where it is built. In 2007, the casino moved into new premises of more than 55,000 square metres (590,000 sq ft), making it the largest casino in Europe. With gambling laws being less strict than in Italy and Switzerland, it is among the most popular gambling destination besides Monte Carlo. The casino was founded in 1917 as a site to gather information from foreign diplomats during the First World War.
