In the modern casino, elaborate themes, musical shows and lighted fountains help draw in patrons, but the bulk of the entertainment (and profits for the owner) comes from gambling. Slot machines, blackjack, baccarat and other games of chance give the casinos the billions of dollars in profits that they rake in every year.
Whether they’re a Las Vegas strip mega-property or an elegant resort in Macau, our top 10 casinos are decadent temples of temptation. The Wynn Macau takes the cake with perfect scores in our hotel, spa, price of entry, reviews and casino categories. Our methodology combines ratings from 40 expert reviewers, plus ratings from 40 other factors to determine the best casinos in each city.
While it is possible for gamblers to cheat, it is very rare that a casino loses money on any day’s gambling. That is because most casino games have a mathematical expectancy of winning that guarantees the house a positive return on investment (known as a house edge). Casinos make their profit by taking a percentage of each game’s total bet or charging an hourly fee for playing poker or other table games.
Because of the large amounts of currency handled inside a casino, the owners and workers are sometimes tempted to steal or cheat. To prevent such activities, casinos use a variety of security measures. Elaborate surveillance systems provide a high-tech “eye-in-the-sky” for the entire casino, and video cameras can be directed to focus on certain suspicious patrons by staffers in a separate room filled with banks of monitors.