Casino

A site where gambling takes place, usually on card games and dice games.

Return to the slot machine terms main page.

While gambling houses are likely to have existed from the earliest days of civilization, the first casino is thought to have been established in Venice, Italy in the 17th century. "Casino" is an Italian word which originally stood for summer house or villa built for pleasure living. Over the years, Italians have referred both to gambling dens and brothels as casinos. Most early casinos were places where a variety of leisure or pleasure activities took place, including sports, gambling, drinking and sex.

This meaning continued until the middle of the 19th century, when more formal casinos began to appear in European countries. One of the few modern casinos was Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, which first opened in 1863.

In America, gambling establishments were first located in Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans and San Francisco. Casinos in those days were named saloons, which combined drinking and socializing with gambling. The saloon was a fixture in the American Old West. When more settled society began to appear in the American West, saloons and gambling dens were associated with lawlessness and immorality. In the latter part of the 19th century, casinos were made illegal throughout most of America.

It took the Great Depression for casinos to make a comeback. Nevada, strapped for cash during the 1930's, legalized gambling in 1931. Nevada lawmakers hoped to make their state a destination for wealthy gamblers from the nearby growing population centers of California. By the 1940's, ambitious casinos were being built in Las Vegas. By the Fifties, Vegas (sometimes known as Sin City) was the casino capital of the world, attracting gamblers from nearby Los Angeles. Gambling was legalized in New Jersey in the 1970's, and Atlantic City became the East Coast's gambling destination. Las Vegas went corporate in the 1980's and 1990's, with palatial casinos who cost of construction ranged into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Modern casinos include card games like poker and blackjack, while the dice game craps is also a gamblers favorite. Roulette, played by spinning a small steel ball on a numbered wheel is also a popular game.

Slot machines are a huge part of the casino floor. In fact, slot machines and video poker machines make up about 70% to 80% of casino's profits. This has not always been the case, because mechanical limitations meant that slot machines could not handle the volume of money that other high stakes casino games might. With the introduction of the random number generator, though, the slot machine was able to offer large progressive jackpots, so slots offered the biggest prizes in a casino.

How to Play Slot Machines

Slot Machine Games

Internet Slot Machines

Are Online Slots Legal?

Slot Machine Strategy

Slot Machine Terms

Slot Machines Site Map

Other Sites