Casino Wikipedia
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.
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. In casino (IPA /kaˈzino/), the emphasis is on the middle syllable (ca-SI-no). In modern-day Italian, a casino is a brothel (also called casa chiusa, literally «closed house»), a mess (confusing situation), or a noisy environment; a gambling house is spelt casinò, with an accent. Other significant gambling centers include Singapore, Monte Carlo, and various locations in Europe and the United States.
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 third. The Las Vegas Valley has the largest concentration of casinos in the United States.
Opened in 1865, Monte Carlo Casino, located in Monte Carlo city, in Monaco, is a casino and a tourist attraction. While there are casinos in many places, a few places have become well known specifically for gambling. According to Bloomberg, accumulated revenue of the biggest casino operator companies worldwide amounted to almost US$55 billion in 2011. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized throughout the state of Nevada, where the United States’s first legalized casinos were set up. During the 19th century, casino came to encompass other public buildings where pleasurable activities took place.
Common games include craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and video poker. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized in Nevada, gamstop leading to the rise of Las Vegas as a major gambling center. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions.
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. 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. The archipelago of Malta is a particularly famous place for casinos, standing out mainly with the historic casino located at the princely residence of Dragonara.
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. All casino games have a mathematically determined advantage for the house, known as the house edge, which ensures that the casino will make a profit in the long run.
