Mark Cassino: Hi. My name is Mark Cassino. My last name, Cassino, is pronounced just like, well you know, the word for a gambling house in Las Vegas or wherever. I've heard a lot of jokes and wise cracks about my last name because that association and that is one meaning of the word. There's one difference between my name though, and as it's spelled with two S's, whereas the gambling places use only one. The word Cassino is an Italian word that means literally little house. It later came to mean a country building that was used as a meeting place. My father used to tell me that wealthy people in Europe would have a cottage or a little house near their main estate where they could gather with their friends for social events, parties, games, whatever. The gathering place was called the Cassino since it was literally a little house. And one thing lead to another and the word Cassino gradually become associated with a place to have parties and to gamble. One branch of our family originally came from the area near the Italian village called Cassino, which is located about 80 miles southeast of Rome.