A casino is a gambling establishment, also known as a gaming house, that offers a variety of games to the public. Most casinos are combined with hotels, restaurants and shopping centers, and many offer live entertainment. Some even serve as a destination for conventions, weddings and other special events.

Gambling in some form has been around for centuries, with records of it found in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. In modern times, it has become a huge industry that is responsible for attracting large numbers of tourists from around the world. It has also generated a large number of gambling addiction problems.

A recent survey of casino patrons by Gemini Research found that the majority of those who gamble chose to play slot machines. In comparison, only 6% of respondents selected table games like poker and blackjack, while bingo and keno received less than 5% of the market share.

Casinos earn a profit through a combination of the house edge and variance. The former represents the average statistical advantage that the casino has over players; this is usually a negative value and can be calculated for most games using basic strategy. Variance, on the other hand, is the volatility of returns over time, and is determined by a number of factors including game rules, number of decks used and card counting strategies. The mathematicians and computer programmers who study this kind of data are called gaming analysts or mathematicians.