One of the most anticipated adventures on many people’s bucket lists is visiting a foreign country and experiencing that thrill of stepping into a twinkly, noisy casino. The attraction could be from a desire to win big or simply because they’ve seen these places in the movies, and want that same feeling vicariously.

Casinos are often seen as a modern-day equivalent of an indoor amusement park, with 5-star hotels, musical shows, shopping centers and exotic locations helping to draw in the crowds. But they would not exist without games of chance, which provide the billions in profits casinos rake in each year. These include slots, blackjack, roulette, craps, keno and baccarat.

The first thing you notice when entering a casino is the ever-present eye in the sky – small black domes on the ceiling that are hiding cameras. These cameras help keep an eye on patrons to spot cheating or other improprieties. Each table game also has a ‘pit boss’ or ‘table manager’ that oversees the tables and can help identify betting patterns that might be suspicious. All of this is in addition to the heightened security that takes place in a count room where the money is bundled and deposited into a vault for transport by armored car to be deposited in a bank.

In addition to the ‘eye in the sky’ and counting rooms, casinos are on the cutting edge of technology when it comes to data analysis. Players use chips rather than cash to make bets, and this helps surveillance detect improprieties, because there are fewer ways to conceal the movements of a hand. The ‘chip tracking’ systems monitor the amounts wagered minute-by-minute and quickly discover any statistical anomalies.