I only got to visit one casino on my vacation in Italy. There are very casinos in Italy and for good reason. There is only one in all of Venice. Well actually two. One is open in the winter months in the city and the other is open for the summer in the the nearby resort town of Lido. Venice is a fairly large city and it only caters to tourists. So you would figure if they had casinos, there would be a lot of them. Not so. And the one casino they do have is fairly small.

Why you ask? Well in order to just enter the casino, you need:

1) Passport
2) Suit and tie for men, appropriate clothing for women
3) Admission fee or hotel referral card
4) You have to stand on line and get photographed while your documents are being processed
5) If everything works out OK, you are issued an admission ticket like the one below

With all the formality you would think that they were giving away money instead of taking yours.