The Etymology of Casino
Casino is one of those Italian words that turned a domestic image into an international institution. In Italian, casino is the diminutive of casa (house), formed with the suffix -ino, and originally named a small country house, garden pavilion, or summer retreat used for music, conversation, and games. By the 18th century such pavilions had become the natural setting for organised gambling, especially in Venice — the famous Ridotto opened in 1638 as a state-licensed gaming room. English picked up casino in 1789 already meaning a public gambling house, never the original architectural sense. Italian itself has retained both meanings, plus a colloquial sense of mess or chaos (un gran casino, a real mess), which English has not borrowed. The Latin parent casa meant simply hut or cottage and is of murky pre-Latin origin, possibly Mediterranean substrate. The journey from Roman peasant's hut to Las Vegas neon is one of the longer semantic arcs in the language.