The modern casino is like an indoor amusement park for adults, with the vast majority of the entertainment (and profits for the owner) coming from gambling. Slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps and keno provide the billions of dollars in profit that casinos rake in every year. But there is much more to a casino than its games of chance.
In fact, there is a very dark side to the business of gambling that isn’t often talked about. In this article we’ll take a look at the history of casinos, how they make their money, the popular casino games that are played and what goes on inside the casinos.
From the earliest days of gambling, people have looked for ways to turn chance into cash. From the ancient Mesopotamian empires to Napoleon’s France and Elizabethan England, history is filled with stories of entertainment based on games of chance.
While some gamblers have made fortunes at the tables, most lose more than they win. That is why casinos have an advantage over the players that they call the house edge. The house edge is a mathematical formula that ensures the casino will win money in the long run, even if no one plays. In the case of games like poker where players play against each other, the casino makes a commission known as the rake. This means that the longer a player plays, the more likely they will lose money. However, with the help of sophisticated security systems, most casinos can minimize their losses to a minimum.