A casino or gambling house is an establishment that offers various types of gambling. Casinos are also known for offering entertainment and food services. Many casinos are combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, and other tourist attractions. In the United States, legal casinos are operated in Nevada and other places that have been specifically licensed by state governments for this purpose. Some of these are very large and operate as resorts with multiple gaming floors, and have hotel rooms, spas, and other amenities for the patrons.

A number of games in casinos involve a degree of skill, and some even require knowledge of strategy. However, the majority of casino games are pure chance, and the expected value of a player’s bet is uniformly negative (i.e., a player will lose money). The house’s advantage over players is known as the house edge. In some cases, the house may make a profit by taking a commission on some of the funds bet. These are referred to as rakes in poker, and take place either by taking a percentage of each pot or charging an hourly fee to each player.

Casinos have become a major source of revenue for many jurisdictions. In the United States, the most famous are in Las Vegas, where gambling has been legal since 1931. Other significant casinos include Monte Carlo, located in Monaco, and the Bellagio in Paris, France. The Monte Carlo casino has been depicted in several books and movies, including Ben Mezrich’s Busting Vegas, which tells the story of MIT students who beat the house by using mathematics to spot patterns in the game’s outcomes.