The casino is a building where people can gamble and play games of chance. Unlike your grandmother’s casino, today’s casinos are big, bright and full of music, shopping and restaurants. They are also places where you can win lots of money.

Casinos are businesses and, like any business, they need to make a profit. Every game has a built in advantage for the house (which can be less than two percent) and this advantage is what brings in the billions of dollars that casinos rake in each year.

To ensure that they don’t lose more than they can afford to, casinos monitor gamblers to see how much money they are bringing in and going out. This information is then used to reward regulars with free goods and services such as rooms, food, drinks, entertainment, transportation and even airline tickets. This is called comping.

Despite this, something about gambling seems to encourage cheating, stealing and scamming, so casinos spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on security. The most obvious example is the cameras that loom over everyone on the floor. Another is the count room, where cash is bundled and sent to a secure vault awaiting transport by armored car for deposit in the bank.

The biggest casino in America isn’t in Las Vegas but in Ledyard, Connecticut. The Foxwoods Resort Casino is home to 4.7 million square feet of gaming space. It also features a hotel, theaters, restaurants and an outdoor water park.