casino
Americannoun
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a building or large room used for meetings, entertainment, dancing, etc., especially such a place equipped with gambling devices, gambling tables, etc.
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(in Italy) a small country house or lodge.
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Cards. Also cassino a game in which cards that are face up on the table are taken with eligible cards in the hand.
noun
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a public building or room in which gaming takes place, esp roulette and card games such as baccarat and chemin de fer
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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.
Essaye pointed to the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF, which owns DraftKings and Flutter as top 10 holdings as well as several casino companies.
From Barron's • Jun. 11, 2026
He added that those with casino platforms on their website stand to benefit most from the surge.
From BBC • Jun. 10, 2026
Las Vegas casino giant MGM Resorts is in play, with Barry Diller’s company offering to buy the share of the company it doesn’t own and take it private.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
This year, on New Year’s Day, I had brunch at the elite Wynn casino in Las Vegas.
From Salon • Jun. 3, 2026
Uncle George is dealing out cards, fast, as though he learned this technique in a casino.
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
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.
