A casino (plural: casinos) is a public room or building where the playing of gambling games — such as roulette, baccarat, blackjack, poker, and slot machines — is the primary activity. The term may also refer to a business, website, or app that facilitates such gambling activities. The history of casino games stretches back millennia. Archeologists have found wooden blocks used in games of chance in China dating back to 2300 BC, while dice appeared in Rome around 500 AD and the game of blackjack first hit the scene in the 1600s.

Despite the enticing lights, sounds, and smells that greet patrons when they walk into a casino, it’s impossible to forget that a casino is, at its core, a profit-making enterprise. It has a built-in advantage, or house edge, in each of the games it offers that guarantees its gross profit over the long run. Mathematicians and computer programmers work for casinos to analyze the house edge of various games and determine how much money is needed in a cash reserve to cover losses from those bets.

To take advantage of this knowledge, casinos use a variety of tricks to keep you there. From scents to lighting to the fact that there are no clocks in the place, every element of a casino is designed to lead you into spending more and more money. The sunk cost fallacy is on full display every time you follow a losing bet with another, only to see it come up short again.