Whether your grandmother loves to take weekend bus trips to the nearest casino or you’ve seen the movie Ocean’s 11, gambling is a major industry in many cities. The modern casino is like an indoor amusement park for adults, with the vast majority of its entertainment (and profits for the owner) coming from games of chance. While musical shows, lighted fountains and shopping centers help draw in the guests, casinos would not exist without blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, and slot machines. These games of chance are responsible for billions of dollars in profits raked in by U.S. casinos every year.

Casinos have a number of ways to keep gamblers happy and playing, including comping them free rooms, food, show tickets, and even limo service. These benefits are based on how much a player spends and how long they play. Ask a casino employee or information desk for more details.

While these bonuses help keep gamblers coming back, they don’t reduce the house edge, which is the average profit that a casino expects to make on each game played. To minimize this edge, the house uses chips instead of real money, which makes it harder for gamblers to become concerned about how much they’re losing. In addition, the casino’s security measures are designed to prevent cheating and stealing by both patrons and staff. These measures include cameras that can be watched by security personnel in a separate room filled with banks of monitors.