A gold watchwork still life with chips, dice and a roulette wheel.

Category three

Casino Hotels

This category collects casino hotels — properties that are hotels in the ordinary sense, and that include a gaming floor among their facilities.ⁱ The four below are described the way every other entry in this index is described: by building, setting, rooms and what a guest can reach on foot.

The gaming floor is noted where it exists and then left alone. It is a facility, in the same way a theatre, a spa or a marina is a facility, and it is not the reason any of these buildings are interesting architecturally. Three of the four occupy genuinely unusual sites — a river island, a gorge escarpment, a lakeside tract in cottage country — and all four are built to hold a guest for a full weekend without a car.

Nothing on this page is an inducement to gamble, and no gaming is offered, promoted or facilitated by this site. Where local law sets a minimum age or other conditions for entry to a gaming floor, those conditions are the property's to enforce and the reader's to check.

Entries

The four properties

Montreal Casino & Hotel

A hotel adjoining a gaming floor on a river island

The property sits on an island in the river, occupying pavilions built for a world exposition and converted afterwards to their present use. That inheritance explains the shape of the place: unusually tall public volumes, long sight lines through glass, and a plan that reads more like an exhibition hall than a conventional hotel podium. Guest accommodation is arranged alongside rather than stacked above the public floors. ¹

As a place to stay, its advantages are the island itself — parkland, river paths and event grounds within walking distance — and a restaurant programme that runs from casual to formal without requiring a car. The gaming floor is one facility among several, and the hotel is perfectly usable by guests who never set foot on it. Access to the city centre is short and direct, which keeps the property from feeling marooned.

Fallsview Casino Resort

A resort hotel built above a river gorge

Position is the whole argument here. The resort is cut into the slope above the gorge, which means a substantial share of its guest rooms look directly onto the falls, and the public floors are arranged to keep that view available to people who are simply walking through. Few hotels in any category can make the same claim about their principal outlook. ²

The building works as a self-contained resort: a theatre with a standing programme of touring shows, a spa, a pool, a retail concourse and a range of restaurants, all reachable indoors. The gaming floor is a large facility within that complex rather than the organising principle of a stay, and the surrounding tourist district is a short walk from the doors. Room stock is substantial, so the hotel absorbs event crowds without visible strain.

River Rock Casino Resort

A riverside hotel with its own marina and concert theatre

Built on the river flats near a major airport, this resort makes a virtue of its access: a rail link runs to the city centre, the airport is minutes away, and the property keeps its own marina on the water behind it. That combination suits the hotel's dominant use, which is short stays built around an event rather than long leisure holidays. ³

The rooms are contemporary and generously sized, split across a main tower and a quieter secondary building. A theatre on site brings touring music through most of the year, and the dining range is broader than the property's footprint suggests. A gaming floor is among the facilities, but the resort functions equally as an airport hotel with unusually good food and a river behind it.

Casino Rama Resort

A lakeside resort hotel on First Nations land

The resort stands on First Nations territory in lake country, and the relationship is neither incidental nor decorative: Indigenous art, naming and design motifs run through the public spaces, and the property is a significant regional employer. It is worth stating plainly, because it distinguishes this entry from the other three more than any facility list would. ⁴

The setting is rural rather than urban — lakes, forest and cottage country, with the nearest sizeable town some distance off. The hotel is accordingly built to hold guests for a weekend: a large entertainment venue that has hosted touring acts for decades, a spa, several restaurants, and a gaming floor among the facilities. Rooms are quiet, the grounds are open, and the pace is slower than at the urban properties above.