A casino is an establishment that offers various gambling activities. Modern casinos are like indoor amusement parks for adults, with the vast majority of entertainment coming from gambling games such as slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps and keno. While musical shows, lighted fountains, shopping centers and lavish hotels help draw in customers, casinos would not exist without games of chance.
Many casino patrons are tempted to cheat or steal, either in collusion with staff or independently. This is why casinos have such strict security measures. Aside from obvious things such as security cameras, casinos also look for specific patterns in patron behavior. For example, they pay attention to the way a player marks his or her bets on the table, how dealers shuffle cards and the location of betting spots. If a patron’s actions deviate from these patterns, they may be suspect.
Because of the large amounts of money handled by casino personnel, some employees are required to wear tamper-proof clothing. In addition, the casino is decorated with bright colors that are supposed to stimulate gamblers and make them forget about time. In fact, red is a very popular color in casinos. Another trick used by casino designers is to use a high ceiling and one-way mirrors so that surveillance personnel can watch the entire casino floor at once. Casinos have also gotten pickier about their patrons in the twenty-first century. They now concentrate their efforts on “high rollers,” who spend a lot of money and receive extravagant comps such as free spectacular entertainment, luxury hotel rooms and expensive food and drink.