casino
Americannoun
-
a building or large room used for meetings, entertainment, dancing, etc., especially such a place equipped with gambling devices, gambling tables, etc.
-
(in Italy) a small country house or lodge.
-
Cards. Also cassino a game in which cards that are face up on the table are taken with eligible cards in the hand.
noun
-
a public building or room in which gaming takes place, esp roulette and card games such as baccarat and chemin de fer
-
a variant spelling of cassino
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of casino
1780–90; < Italian, equivalent to cas(a) “house” + -ino diminutive suffix
Explanation
A casino is a building where people can gamble and play games of chance. Your grandmother might enjoy taking weekend bus trips to the nearest casino with her friends. Many casinos are near — or inside — hotels, and include opportunities to dine, drink, and shop. The main event at a casino, however, is the chance to gamble either by betting money on games like blackjack or poker, or by putting coins in a slot machine. Casino is also the name of a card game. The word comes from the Italian casa, or "house." In the 1800s casino came to mean "building for aristocratic gambling."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Not everyone is excited: Foreign investors are leaving the Korean casino.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 6, 2026
He then moved to Montenegro where the Sunday Times reports he became a "key player" in Tether.bet, an online bookmaker and casino offering users large stakes on sports and politics in cash or cryptocurrency.
From BBC • Jul. 5, 2026
“It’s more of a bet in this casino economy of ours,” said Victor Tan Chen, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 25, 2026
The casino has funded theater programs, youth writing intensives and revenue sharing with neighboring tribes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 24, 2026
Historically, a Wall Street firm worried over the creditworthiness of its customers; its customers often took it on faith that the casino would be able to pay off its winners.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
