Casinos: Profit and Gamble

How do Casinos profit?

Amazing victories have come from casinos, from people who sell everything they own and come up double to intelligent, crafty engineers that saw how a roulette wheel favored a number and a color. At the end of the day however, a casino is like most things - a business. For any business to survive, it needs to at least break even or for others, make a lot of money and return on the investment. So for some, it's entirely reasonable to wonder why a business based on giving money out would even make money.

First, we should consider some numbers. Some studies have estimated that players lose approximately $8000 a year on gambling - and that's for the online gaming industry. For every amazing player there are at least twenty others, if not more, that don't know what they're doing. There are plenty of "serious" players that repeatedly bet on hunches and lose often. We do not even count the number of players or honeymooners that just happened to pass by and lose more than they win to the casino.

All games are also inherently tilted to the casino to offset the sheer number of players that come by every night and every day. They also often have something called the house edge, which is the casino's profit in percentile in relation to player's bet. A good example of this is in roulette, where the zero and the double zero where added expressly to improve the house edge, as it reduces the chances of a player winning. The average house edge in roulette is around 6%, which is plenty if one considers how many people play roulette - or how much they bet in a round. With anything from a forty-seven to three percent chance of victory for roulette bets, it essentially guarantees that save for catastrophic shifts of luck, the casino will probably make it out in the green instead of the red.

Let's not forget that casinos are often part of larger industries, such as hotels - which make plenty of money as well. Players remain people - they need basic necessities, such as food, drink and shelter. Expensive refreshments, snacks and shows that make players linger and play even longer are not uncommon in high end gambling dens, earning them an even bigger chunk of money.

The odds leaned in the house's favor, consistent gains from other related businesses - these and more allow casinos around the world to make more money. The occasional big winner is easily offset by the hundreds of people that didn't make it, making sure that the casino will be there for many others to enjoy.