A casino, also known as a gaming house or a gambling house, is an establishment that offers various types of gambling. These establishments can be found in a variety of places, including land-based locations, cruise ships, hotels, and even on military bases. Casinos are also known for hosting live entertainment such as concerts and stand up comedy.
Many casinos are also known for giving comps to players, which are free goods or services such as hotel rooms, dinners, tickets to shows, and airline and limo service. These are given to players based on their amount of play at the casino and their level of spending. This type of marketing is a form of customer retention.
In the 1990s, casinos dramatically increased their use of technology for game supervision. For example, in table games, betting chips have built-in microcircuitry that interacts with electronic systems to allow casinos to oversee exactly what is being wagered minute by minute and warn about any anomaly; roulette wheels are monitored electronically and analyzed quickly for any statistical deviation from expectations; and slot machines are wired and supervised by computer programs.
Although casinos bring in revenue and jobs, their social cost is often questioned. Studies have shown that problem gamblers take money from other forms of local recreation and that the costs of treatment for addiction, lost productivity, and diminished property values outweigh any revenue generated by casinos. This has led some cities to ban them or limit their operations.