Imagine yourself in a twinkly casino, wallet bulging with cash and a craving to try your luck at the blackjack table or the slot machines. It’s easy to get lost in the excitement and lose track of time. That’s intentional: Casinos don’t have clocks, and they use decor (like walls painted to look like the daytime sky) and technology to make it hard to tell what hour it is without checking a watch or a phone.

Casinos also have a number of other tricks to keep you gambling as long as possible. They often serve booze nonstop, and it’s free to players as long as they gamble enough—a strategy designed to lower inhibitions and clouds judgment so people will be more likely to keep spending. Casinos are also designed to be labyrinthine, with curved pathways that tempt people into trying out a new game or gambling a bit more when they were originally on the way to the bathroom or the exit.

And of course casinos are always competing with each other for your money, and against non-gambling resorts, online gaming and private gambling, not to mention an illegal gambling business much larger than the legal one. All of these factors combine to create an environment in which most players will lose money. But the houses’ built-in advantages, known as the house edge, ensure that they will ultimately win. So how do they do it?