100 Fun Facts About Casino

What did the Italian word casino, from casa, originally describe?

A small villa or social club: casino means 'little house', and English borrowed it in 1744 for a public room for music and dancing; gambling took over the name only in the next century.

Which city's Great Council opened the Ridotto, the West's first government-sanctioned gambling house, in 1638?

Venice. Unable to stop its citizens gambling, the republic opened the four-storey Ridotto so that it could control the play and take a share of the money itself.

Which US state legalized casino gambling in 1931, giving America its first legal casinos?

Nevada. With its mines failing in the Depression, the legislature legalised gambling in March 1931 to bring money back into the state; New Jersey was the next to allow casinos, in 1976.

Which city passed the Las Vegas Strip in 2006 to become the world's biggest gambling market by revenue?

Macau. Its boom began in 2002, when Stanley Ho's 40-year casino monopoly expired and rival operators, Las Vegas firms among them, were licensed; four years later it was out-earning the Strip.

What term describes the built-in margin that guarantees the casino profits in the long run?

The house edge. The odds are set so that players lose a small share of their bets over time; poker is the exception, since players bet against each other and the house takes a fee from each pot.

What is the casino industry's nickname for its closed-circuit surveillance system?

The eye in the sky. Surveillance officers watch the ceiling cameras from a room of monitors and alert the uniformed guards on the floor the moment a player or dealer looks wrong.

Which French mathematician, legend says, invented roulette while trying to build a perpetual motion machine?

Blaise Pascal. The tale is a favourite, but historians trace the game itself to France in the 1700s, well after his death, where it grew out of older gambling games.

Roulette takes its name from a French word meaning what?

Little wheel. The game reached its present form in France in the 1790s and soon became the leading draw in gambling houses across Europe.

Which country's standard roulette wheel has two zero pockets, nearly doubling the casino's advantage to 5.26 percent?

United States. American wheels kept the double zero that European casinos dropped, and since a winning number pays 35 to 1 either way, the 38th pocket lifts the casino's cut from 2.7 percent.

What colour is the zero pocket on a roulette wheel?

Green. A winning number pays only 35 to 1 although the wheel has 37 or 38 pockets, so the green zero is where the casino makes its money.

What did Ashley Revell bet his entire $135,300 net worth on in a single 2004 roulette spin?

Red. He had sold everything he owned, clothes included, to raise the stake, and settled on the colour only at the last minute; the spin at the Plaza in Las Vegas doubled his money.

Which writer's tale of two card cheats in Seville has them playing twenty-one, the ancestor of blackjack?

Miguel de Cervantes. In Rinconete y Cortadillo one young cheat boasts that his worn pack always cuts to an ace, a sure advantage because in twenty-one an ace counts as one or eleven.

According to popular legend, a bonus paid on a black jack with which other card gave blackjack its name?

The ace of spades. The tale has a rival: an 1897 book on the Klondike gold rush lists 'black jack' among Skagway's gambling games, and card historian Thierry Depaulis credits the name to the prospectors.

Which 1962 book by Edward Thorp launched card counting into the mainstream?

Beat the Dealer. Thorp, a mathematics professor, checked a basic strategy that four mathematicians had worked out by hand in 1956, then showed that a player who counted cards could tip the odds his own way.

Besides 'a blackjack', what is a two-card hand of an ace and a ten-value card called?

A natural. It wins at once unless the dealer has one too, and it traditionally pays one and a half times the bet where an ordinary winning hand pays even money.

In the Hi-Lo card-counting system, which cards add one to the running count when they are dealt?

2 through 6. Every low card that leaves the shoe makes what remains richer in tens and aces, which favour the player, so counters add one for it and subtract one for each ten, face card or ace.

Which 1988 film spread the myth that card counters memorise every card in a six-deck shoe?

Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman's Raymond tracks six decks in his head at Caesars Palace; real counters memorise no cards and keep only a running tally.

Which 2008 film, starring Kevin Spacey, was inspired by the MIT Blackjack Team?

21. The real teams split the work: a spotter counted cards at a table and signalled a partner, the big player, to wander over and bet heavily once the deck had turned in their favour.

Which fifth reel symbol, beside horseshoes, diamonds, spades and hearts, gave Charles Fey's pioneering slot machine its name?

A bell. Lining up three Liberty Bells paid the top prize, and the machine proved such a hit with saloon drinkers that rival makers were soon turning out copies of their own.

Which slot machine symbol began as a picture of a pack of chewing gum?

The BAR. To get round anti-gambling laws, makers around 1910 passed their slot machines off as gum dispensers, and the pack of gum pictured on the reels was soon stylised into a bar.

In Britain, one-armed bandits go by which name, after the symbols on their reels?

Fruit machines. One-armed bandit comes from the side lever and the machines' knack for emptying pockets; Australians call theirs pokies, short for poker machines.

In which California city did the mechanic Charles Fey build the first modern slot machines in the 1890s?

San Francisco. His machines did so well in the city's saloons that he quit his job to open a factory, and even after they were banned at home he could not keep up with orders from elsewhere.

Craps descends from an English dice game called what?

Hazard. The medieval game was played for ruinous stakes in English gambling rooms; its simpler American offspring took shape in the 19th century and went on to become a casino staple.

In craps, what is a roll of two ones called?

Snake eyes. The two single spots look like a pair of beady eyes, and on the first roll of a round that total, like a 3 or a 12, loses the shooter's bet on the spot.

Punto banco, chemin de fer and banque are the three popular variants of which game?

Baccarat. In chemin de fer the bank passes from player to player, but in punto banco, the form most casinos deal, the house keeps it and fixed drawing rules leave the players no decisions at all.

In Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, which villain does James Bond face across the card table?

Le Chiffre. In Fleming's first Bond novel he is a Soviet paymaster who has lost union funds and means to win them back at the gambling tables, so 007 is sent to bankrupt him.

Poker star Phil Ivey won $9.6 million at the Borgata in 2012 by exploiting misprinted cards with which technique?

Edge sorting. The pattern on the card backs was cut unevenly, so Ivey's partner coaxed the dealer into turning the best cards around; a judge later ordered the pair to repay about $10 million.

Who is forbidden from entering the gaming rooms of the Casino de Monte-Carlo?

Citizens of Monaco. The tables are open only to visitors, yet locals do share in the takings: the company that runs the casino is controlled by Monaco's government and its ruling family.

Charles Garnier, who helped enlarge the Monte Carlo casino in 1878-79, was famous for designing which Paris landmark?

The Opéra. His concert hall on the casino's seaward side, later named the Salle Garnier, went on to become the home of Monaco's own opera company.

Resorts International, the East Coast's first legal casino, opened in May 1978 on which city's Boardwalk?

Atlantic City. New Jersey voters had approved casinos there in 1976 to revive the fading resort, and Resorts won the race to open by converting an old hotel, Chalfonte-Haddon Hall.

What is the casino employee who spins the wheel and pays out bets at a roulette table called?

The croupier. The word once meant someone riding behind another on a horse's croup, or rump; it passed to the assistant who stood behind a gambler, and from him to the house's own dealer.

Which casino employee watches over a whole group of gaming tables and their dealers?

The pit boss. Dealers keep their eyes on their own game, so the pit boss scans the whole cluster of tables for cheats and for betting patterns that look wrong.

Which real Las Vegas casino boss inspired Robert De Niro's Sam 'Ace' Rothstein in Casino (1995)?

Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal. He ran the Stardust and three other casinos for the mob without a gaming licence, which state regulators refused him, and in 1982 he survived a car bombing.

Who won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for playing chip hustler Ginger McKenna in Casino?

Sharon Stone. Ginger was drawn from Geri McGee, a former Las Vegas dancer married to the casino boss at the heart of the story; she died in 1982, weeks after an attempt on his life.

Who plays Terry Benedict, the casino owner robbed by Danny Ocean's crew in Ocean's Eleven (2001)?

Andy Garcia. His Terry Benedict owns the three real casinos the crew hits at once, the Bellagio among them, and is dating Danny's ex-wife Tess, which makes the heist personal.

Which mobster opened the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas in December 1946 and was shot dead six months later?

Bugsy Siegel. The Flamingo was not his idea: Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson began it and ran short of money, and under Siegel the bill ballooned to $6 million, much of it the mob's.

Keno, the casino lottery game, reached the American West in the 1800s with immigrants from which country?

China. There the game was baige piao, the 'white pigeon ticket', and instead of numbers players marked the first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic.

What are the odds of hitting all 20 numbers on a 20-spot keno ticket?

About 1 in 3.5 quintillion. That is the number of different ways 20 balls can be drawn from keno's 80, a figure nineteen digits long, so the ticket is all but impossible to hit.

What do casinos call the free rooms, meals and show tickets they hand to big-spending gamblers?

Comps. Short for complimentaries, they are rated by how long and how heavily a guest gambles, which is why casinos push loyalty cards that track every bet.

What are the spots on the faces of a casino die called?

Pips. Opposite faces of a die always add up to seven, so anyone who can see the top of a thrown die also knows the number hidden underneath.

In casino poker rooms, what is the commission the house takes from each pot called?

The rake. Poker players bet against one another rather than against the house, so the casino has no built-in advantage to rely on and charges for running the game instead.

What is the casino term for someone skilled enough to overcome the built-in odds?

An advantage player. The label covers legal methods such as card counting: they break no law, yet a casino that spots one at work is free to bar the player from its tables.

Which group played the Sands casino's Copa Room at night while filming Ocean's 11 by day?

The Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra owned a share of the Sands, and he, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop wrapped each day's shooting in time to trade songs and insults on its stage.

Which Las Vegas resort opened in 1989 with a man-made volcano erupting in its front yard?

The Mirage. Costing more than $600 million, it was the most expensive casino the city had seen and touched off a building boom along the Strip; its volcano kept erupting until the resort closed in 2024.

Five years before the Flamingo, which resort opened in 1941 as the first on what became the Strip?

El Rancho Vegas. Hotelier Thomas Hull built it on empty desert beside the highway from Los Angeles, and its instant success drew the rivals that turned that stretch of road into the Strip.

Which Las Vegas hotel-casino suffered the deadliest fire in the city's history in November 1980?

The MGM Grand. Smoke drawn through the air system trapped guests in rooms and stairwells far above the flames; when the resort was built, it had refused to pay for sprinklers in its casino.

According to its famous 1959 neon sign, drivers reaching the Strip are welcomed to what kind of Las Vegas?

Fabulous. Betty Willis's diamond-shaped sign does not actually stand in the city: like most of the Strip, it lies south of the Las Vegas city limits, in unincorporated Clark County.

Which billionaire, three-time owner of the MGM film studio, opened Las Vegas's International Hotel in 1969?

Kirk Kerkorian. A wartime ferry pilot who made his first fortune running charter flights, he went on to build what was billed as the world's largest hotel three separate times.

Which casino developer, creator of the Bellagio, put his own name on a new Las Vegas resort in 2005?

Steve Wynn. His company and its resorts, the Bellagio included, had passed to a rival in a takeover in 2000, so he started again, this time with his own name on the building.

The forerunners of dice, known as astragali, were which part of a sheep?

Knucklebones. Each of these small anklebones comes to rest on one of four sides, so they could be thrown to settle a bet long before anyone carved a six-sided cube.

Which shipping giant's founder once saved it by winning $27,000 at blackjack in Las Vegas?

FedEx was down to its last $5,000 after a loan was refused, so founder Fred Smith took the money to the tables and won enough to cover a $24,000 fuel bill.

Which reclusive billionaire bought the Desert Inn casino rather than move out of its penthouse?

Howard Hughes had refused to leave his top-floor rooms, and buying the hotel ended the row with its owners. He went on to buy five more Las Vegas casinos.

In the 1950s, Las Vegas casinos held viewing parties for what spectacle in the desert sky?

Mushroom clouds from nuclear tests 65 miles away could be seen from downtown hotels, and Las Vegas sold itself as the Atomic City until testing went underground in 1963.

Which food is said to be named after an English earl who refused to leave the gaming table to eat?

The sandwich takes its name from the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who reportedly had beef brought between slices of toast so he could keep playing cards without greasy fingers.

Which daredevil was badly hurt trying to jump the Caesars Palace fountains by motorcycle in 1967?

Evel Knievel lost his last $100 at a blackjack table on the morning of the jump, then crushed his pelvis and femur when the landing went wrong.

Which Old West gunfighter reportedly held aces and eights, the dead man's hand, when he was shot?

Wild Bill Hickok was killed by Jack McCall during a poker game in a Deadwood saloon, though nobody tied those cards to him until the 1920s.

Which director made the 1995 mob epic Casino, his eighth film with Robert De Niro?

Martin Scorsese filmed it at night inside the Riviera in Las Vegas, using the defunct Landmark Hotel next door as the entrance to his fictional resort.

In casino slang, which sea creature gives its name to a customer who bets enormous sums?

A whale is worth so much that casinos lay on private jets, limousines and their best suites, all free, to tempt one through the doors.

What do the Spanish words Las Vegas mean in English?

The meadows were fertile lowlands watered by desert springs, first reached by outsiders in 1829 when a Mexican trading party crossed the valley.

Which actor plays the volatile mob enforcer Nicky Santoro opposite Robert De Niro in Casino?

Joe Pesci's Nicky is modelled on the real mob enforcer Tony Spilotro, and in the story he is the childhood friend sent to Las Vegas to protect Ace and the casino.

Which crime reporter, author of the book behind Goodfellas, co-wrote the screenplay of Casino?

Nicholas Pileggi started from a 1980 newspaper report of a casino figure's row with his wife, and was persuaded to write the film before finishing his own book on the story.

Which veteran comedian plays the casino manager Billy Sherbert in the 1995 film Casino?

Don Rickles had headlined Las Vegas showrooms for decades, and in the same year he became the voice of Mr Potato Head in Toy Story.

In the opening scene of the film Casino, what nearly kills Robert De Niro's character Sam Rothstein?

A car bomb wrecks his car in the opening scene, which was filmed three times before the third take was used, yet the character survives the blast.

In the film Casino, where are Nicky Santoro and his brother buried after the mob bosses turn on them?

A cornfield in the Midwest becomes their shallow grave, after the bosses tire of Nicky's reckless crimes and have the brothers beaten with baseball bats.

Which actor plays Lester Diamond, the hustler ex-boyfriend of Ginger, in the 1995 film Casino?

James Woods plays him as a pimp who keeps his grip on Ginger, at one point taking $25,000 from her before Ace has him beaten.

Which singer starred opposite Ann-Margret in the 1964 musical film Viva Las Vegas?

Elvis Presley and his co-star began a real romance during filming, one that gossip columnists followed closely and that alarmed his girlfriend Priscilla.

Which Las Vegas casino is a 30-storey glass pyramid with a beam of light shining from its peak?

Luxor aims its beam straight up, and on a clear night airline pilots at cruising height can see it from as far as 275 miles away.

In the 2006 film Casino Royale, which poker variant does James Bond play in the Montenegro tournament?

Texas hold 'em was so unfamiliar in one overseas market that extra dialogue was dubbed into the poker scene there to explain how the game works.

At a craps table, what is the player whose turn it is to throw the dice called?

The shooter is offered five dice and picks two, then must throw them hard enough to bounce off the far wall of the table.

Which craps table employee calls out each roll and passes the dice back to the player?

The stickman moves the dice with a long wooden stick, handles the bets in the centre of the layout and calls each result in a patter all his own.

In craps slang, which nickname is called out for a roll of double six, the highest total possible?

Boxcars got the name because the two rows of spots resemble drawings of railroad freight wagons, and the same roll is also called midnight, after twelve o'clock.

In blackjack, which word describes a holding that includes an ace counted as eleven?

Soft totals cannot go bust on the very next card, because the ace simply drops in value from eleven to one.

Which blackjack move raises the bet in exchange for receiving exactly one more card?

Doubling down adds a second bet equal to the first, and some casinos allow it only on starting totals of nine, ten or eleven.

In casino blackjack, the dealer must keep drawing cards until reaching at least what total?

17 is the dealer's stopping point, and the casino plays by rote: the dealer never doubles, splits or surrenders, whatever the players are holding.

On a standard six-sided die, the numbers on opposite faces always add up to what?

Seven is a very old convention: a terracotta die dug up at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley, made around 4,000 years ago, already follows it.

Which mistaken belief is named after Monte Carlo, where roulette once came up black 26 times running?

The gambler's fallacy is the belief that a streak makes the opposite result due, and that night it cost players millions of francs as they kept betting against the run.

Which betting system tells a roulette player to double the stake after every single loss?

Martingale players count on the first win recovering every earlier loss, but a long losing streak empties the bankroll or hits the table limit before that win arrives.

Which casino game, whose name means 'precious dice', has players bet on the roll of three dice?

Sic bo also goes by the name big and small, and it has pushed the older three-dice game chuck-a-luck off many American casino floors.

Which annual card tournament did casino owner Benny Binion launch at his Horseshoe in 1970?

The World Series of Poker crowned its first champion by a vote, with Johnny Moss elected by his fellow players and handed a silver cup.

Which game, played on upright machines resembling pinball tables, fills gambling parlours across Japan?

Pachinko pays out in steel balls, not cash, so winners swap them for prize tokens and sell those at a separate shop nearby, a loop that stays just inside the law.

In Australia, which everyday nickname is given to the slot machines officially termed gaming machines?

Pokies is short for poker machines, and opposition to them once carried a South Australian independent into parliament on a No Pokies ticket.

Casino dealers often pool their 'tokes', a slang word for which kind of payment?

Tips to dealers reached an American appeals court in 1976, where judges ruled that tokes were taxable income and not gifts from grateful players.

What is the secure cashier area where a casino swaps chips for money called?

The cage is where chips turn back into cash, one reason casinos use them: a player who grabs back a losing bet and runs is left with nothing of value outside the building.

Which term for a casino's biggest bettors also names the giant Ferris wheel on the Las Vegas Strip?

High Roller stands 550 feet tall and opened in 2014 as the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, a title it held until a bigger one opened in Dubai.

Most of the Las Vegas Strip lies outside the city limits, in which unincorporated town?

Paradise was created in 1950 after casino bosses lobbied for town status, which stopped the mayor of Las Vegas annexing the Strip for its tax revenue.

Which progressive slot game paid a $39.7 million jackpot at the Excalibur casino in Las Vegas in 2003?

Megabucks was the first wide-area progressive, a system from the maker IGT that links machines in many casinos, and the 2003 prize went to a visitor from Los Angeles.

Which 1955 Las Vegas casino, named after a Paris cabaret, was America's first to be racially integrated?

Moulin Rouge had its heyday for only six months, yet a 1960 meeting held in the closed building produced the agreement that desegregated every casino on the Strip.

The casino game pai gow is traditionally played with a set of 32 of which gaming pieces?

Dominoes in pai gow are dealt four to a player, who splits them into two hands of two and must win with both to collect.

Which card game, nicknamed 'bucking the tiger', was played in almost every Old West gambling hall?

Faro took the nickname from the Bengal tiger drawn on early card backs, and some gambling dens simply hung a tiger picture in the window to show a game was running.

Which city was America's gambling capital until the 1960s, when Las Vegas overtook it?

Reno lost the crown to its faster-growing southern rival, and later lost more players when tribal casinos opened over the state line in California.

In which Caribbean capital did the mobster Meyer Lansky open the Riviera casino hotel in 1957?

Havana's Riviera was the largest purpose-built casino hotel outside Las Vegas when it opened, but the 1959 revolution soon ended the mob's investments in Cuba.

In the early 1990s, several American states legalised casinos only aboard which kind of vessel?

Riverboats kept the gambling confined to the waterfront, though the sailing often became a legal fiction and the casino stayed permanently moored.

Which Native American tribe bought the Hard Rock Cafe business in 2007 and built a casino empire on it?

The Seminole Tribe of Florida paid the British company Rank $965 million for the London-born chain and turned it into the casino and hotel group Hard Rock International.

Marina Bay Sands, the casino resort with a rooftop park spanning three towers, is in which Asian city?

Singapore's resort joins its towers with a SkyPark 340 metres long, complete with a 150-metre infinity pool, and the towers themselves were inspired by decks of cards.

Which Russian novelist dictated a novel about roulette in 26 days to pay off his own gambling debts?

Fyodor Dostoevsky finished it with the help of a young stenographer, Anna Snitkina, and married her less than four months later.

Which Englishman's 1891 winning streak inspired the song The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo?

Charles Wells was a fraudster who claimed an infallible system, and two years after his famous wins an Old Bailey jury convicted him on 23 counts of fraud.

Which Portuguese resort's casino, a wartime haunt of spies, helped inspire Ian Fleming's Casino Royale?

Estoril's tables were said to draw spies, dispossessed royals and wartime adventurers, the crowd that fed the atmosphere of the first James Bond novel.

Which Greek-born player reached Las Vegas with $50 in 1992 and ran it up to over $40 million?

Archie Karas built the fortune over two and a half years from a $10,000 loan, then lost most of it in just three weeks in 1995.

Which Frenchman, nicknamed the Magician of Monte Carlo, introduced the single-zero roulette wheel?

François Blanc brought in the wheel with his brother Louis at the German spa of Bad Homburg in 1843, to undercut rival casinos whose wheels carried two pockets for the bank.

Which pinball maker built Money Honey, the first fully electromechanical slot machine, in 1963?

Bally gave the machine a bottomless hopper that could pay out up to 500 coins on its own, so no attendant had to be called over for a big win.