A casino is a gambling establishment where patrons pay to play games of chance and skill, or both. The most common table games are card and dice games, which require strategic thinking and decision making, as well as luck. Players are usually seated around a table, which is specifically designed for the game in question, and interact with each other or a dealer. Some casinos specialize in particular types of games, such as video poker and baccarat.

While legitimate businessmen were reluctant to invest their money in casinos, mobsters found the businesses profitable and were willing to finance them with cash that was otherwise illegally obtained through drug dealing and extortion. As a result, many American casinos were founded in the 1960s and 1970s. Casinos also began to appear on American Indian reservations, which were not subject to state antigambling laws.

Every casino game has a built in advantage for the house, which can be very small but is still enough to generate large profits over time. These profits allow casinos to build elaborate hotels, fountains and replicas of famous monuments and pyramids. They can also afford to lavish comps on big bettors, giving them free hotel rooms, meals, shows and limo service. The precise amount of the house edge varies depending on the game in question, and is calculated by a team of mathematicians and computer programmers who are experts in casino games and probabilities. In a card game, for example, the house edge is determined by basic strategy and can be minimized by using various tricks such as card counting.