The Las Vegas Strip is renowned for its high concentration of casino resort hotels
While there are casinos in many places, a few places have become well-known specifically for gambling. Perhaps the place almost defined by its casino is Monte Carlo, but other places are known as gambling centers.
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Monte Carlo has a famous casino popular with well-off visitors, which is a tourist attraction in its own right. A song and a film named The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo need no explanation—they clearly refer to the casino.
The casino has made Monte Carlo so well-known for games of chance that mathematical methods for solving various problems using many quasi-random numbers—numbers with the statistical distribution of numbers generated by chance—are formally known as Monte Carlo methods. Monte Carlo, was part of the plot in a few James Bond novels and films.
Macau, China
The former Portuguese colony of Macau, part of China since 1999, is a popular destination for visitors who wish to gamble. This started in Portuguese times, when Macau was popular with visitors from nearby British Hong Kong where gambling was more closely regulated.
Casinos in the United States
In much of the Unites States casinos are forbidden or tightly regulated. A few places allow casinos, and they have become well-known as centers of legal gambling. Relatively small places such as Las Vegas are best-known for gambling; larger cities such as Chicago are not defined by their casinos in spite of the large turnover.
Las Vegas has the largest concentration of casinos in the United States. Based on revenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey ranks second, and the Chicago region third.
Top American Casino Markets by Revenue (2009 Annual Revenues[1]):
1. Las Vegas Strip $5.550 billion
2. Atlantic City $3.943 billion
3. Chicago region $2.092 billion
4. Connecticut $1.448 billion
5. Detroit $1.36 billion
6. St. Louis $1.050 billion
7. Tunica Resorts, Mississippi $997.02 million
8. Biloxi, Miss. $833.50 million
9. Shreveport, La. $779.65 million
10. Boulder Strip (Las Vegas) $774.33 million
12. Reno, Nevada $715.23 million
15. New Orleans, La. $653.05 million
18. Downtown Las Vegas $523.82 million
19. Laughlin, Nevada $492.51 million
The Nevada Gaming Control Board divides Clark County, which is coextensive with the Las Vegas metropolitan area, into seven regions for reporting purposes.
Indian gaming has been responsible for a rise in the number of casinos outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
Notes
- ^ American Gaming Association: State of the States 2010 Report (page 8), accessed 11 July 2010
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