Casino entertainment in North America
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A
Binion's
This old-school casino hotel is best known for its 'zero limit' betting policy and for being the birthplace of the World Series of Poker. While its heyday is over, it's a perfect place for beginners to learn blackjack at the low-limit ($2 and up) tables.
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B
Diamond Tooth Gertie's Gambling Hall
This popular re-creation of an 1898 saloon is complete with small-time gambling, a honky-tonk piano and dancing girls. The casino helps promote the town and fund culture. Each night there are three floor shows heavy on corn and kicking legs.
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C
Atlantic Casino Miami
This gaming cruise offers a plethora of slots, video gambling, poker, roulette and blackjack tables, plus an observation deck and full bars.
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D
Casino Regina
In a sad commentary on priorities, the beautiful old train station has been converted into a vast casino, where you can derail your budget on games of chance.
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Beau Rivage
In Biloxi, there are eight – count ’em, eight – giant casino-resorts. The rebuilt Beau Rivage has long been the king of the strip, a glittering gold behemoth that is to Biloxi what Bellagio is to Vegas.
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Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
In Biloxi, there are eight – count ’em, eight – giant casino-resorts. Guests party the nights away drinking ‘Category 5 Hurricanes’ at the numerous Hard Rock Hotel & Casino bars and nightclubs.
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Caesar’s Windsor
The super-plush Caesar’s Windsor overlooking the river provides a fat economic injection for Windsor, though the crowds have declined with passport legislation. Still, the giant screen advertises big-name shows to potential customers across the river. Minimum age 19 years.
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E
Niagara Fallsview Casino
This mondo- successful casino never closes. The building itself is worth a look – an amazing complex of commerce and crap-shoots, with a fantastical fountain in the lobby. Corny old-timers and has-beens like Kenny Rogers and Donny Osmond are regularly wheeled out to perform.
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F
Casino Princesa
Docked adjacent to the Hard Rock Café in the Bayside Marketplace, the Casino Princesa is a large, upscale yacht that departs on 4½-hour voyages that head 3 miles offshore. The boat has two decks of gaming tables (blackjack and craps are big), slot machines and bars.
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G
Slots-a-Fun
For cheap booze and cheap thrills, it’s tough to beat this low-brow dive. Grab a coupon book, give the giant slot machine a free spin and scarf down a few $2 beers and half-pound hot dogs. Then kick back, relax and enjoy the laughable lounge acts. Park at Circus Circus next door.
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H
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
There's so much rock-and-roll memorabilia, it's as if the Hard Rock chain has mugged every famous musician for the last 50 years. This up-to-date casino is equivalent to Atlantic City standards but not Vegas overkill. The snazzy restaurant has live bands nightly. Free outdoor parking.
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Casino de Mont-Tremblant
Another government-run luxury casino is just a dice-roll away from the city in the posh Laurentian resort town of Mont-Tremblant. With 400 slot machines, baccarat, poker, roulette, blackjack and craps, the new casino (opened in 2009) provides glitz and glamour in a stunning country setting. It’s located on the mountain.
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I
Sahara
Standing in the no-man’s-land of the North Strip, the Sahara is a survivor. The Moroccan-themed casino is one of the few vintage Vegas icons to withstand the onslaught of corporate megaresorts. After the Sahara threw open its doors in 1952, its Conga Room showcased everyone from jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald to the Beatles.
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J
Trump Taj Mahal
Like a breathless schoolboy, the Trump Taj Mahal loves to tell visitors how much of everything it has. Seven stone elephants! 70 minarets! Four and a half times more steel than the Eiffel Tower! A 30m (100ft) long lobby desk! Go see it all, but be prepared for it to keep trying, room after room, to be the biggest and bestest ever in the whole world.
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K
Planet Hollywood
In a slightly out-of-the-way locale, Planet Hollywood took its sweet time stripping the ex–Aladdin casino hotel of all of the trappings of its Middle Eastern fantasy. For fans of vintage Vegas, that felt like a crime. But for Paris Hilton imitators, World Series of Poker wannabes and those who like their casinos pimped out in LA style, the new PH fits the bill.
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Casino Royale
Tired of megaresort casinos stealing your dough courtesy of bad-odds video-poker machines and table games with ridiculous rules that inflate the house advantage (ie ‘edge’) beyond limits that even mobsters would find respectable? Well, the odds aren’t great here either, but at least low-minimum wagers make it easier to stomach. Cheap drinks and fast food keep die-hard low rollers sated.
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Golden Nugget
When it debuted as the world’s largest casino in 1946, the Golden Nugget looked like a million bucks and, unbelievably, poker players were allowed to deal their own cards. In the 1970s, casino impresario Steve Wynn brought vintage Vegas back into style by inviting Frank Sinatra to star. In the 21st century the Nugget was catapulted into the national limelight by the Fox reality-TV series Casino.
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N
Casino de Montréal
Based in the former French pavilion from the World’s Fair, the Montréal Casino opened in 1993 and was so popular (and earned so much money) that expansion occurred almost instantly. It remains Québec’s biggest casino. You can gather your winnings at 3000 slot machines and 120 gaming tables, but drinking isn’t allowed on the floor. Arched footbridges link the casino to the Jardin des Floralies, a rose garden that is wonderful for a stroll.
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O
Palms
Designed to seduce Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers, the ultramodern Palms catapulted into the limelight with a starring role on MTV’s Real World reality-TV series and Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown. Today it’s Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club that calls the shots, and you’ll have to cough up some cash to peek inside his hybrid casino-nightspot atop the Palms’ Fantasy Tower, where flashy Moon nightclub has a retractable roof that opens up to the desert’s starry skies.
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El Cortez
A classic dive dating back to 1940, El Cortez is choked with smoke but has vintage Vegas appeal in spades. In the crowded casino, rough-edged local gamblers grudgingly allow accidental tourists like yourself to buy into the low-limit action on roulette, craps and other table games aimed at cheapskates and gambling novices. El Cortez is the kind of place where it’s almost impossible to lose your shirt, but you’ll need a few stiff drinks first. It’s a few too many blocks east of the Fremont Street Experience.
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Monte Carlo
Fronted by Corinthian colonnades, triumphal arches, petite dancing fountains and allegorical statuary, this not-so-elegant casino is still bustling and spacious. A magnificent marble-floored, crystal-chandeliered lobby with Palladian windows is reminiscent of a European grand hotel, but otherwise this is a poor person’s Bellagio rather than an evocation of the grandeur of its namesake in Monaco. For entertainment, there’s live music at the Pub and tacky, trashy Diablo’s Cantina towering over the Strip out front.
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R
Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon
Lavish Tiffany-styled stained glass, stately chandeliers and polished dark wood dominate this pint-sized neo-Victorian casino. Only downtown’s Main Street Station evokes turn-of-the-20th-century Nevada better. Opened as the Barbary Coast, this 1970s-era casino claims 650 slot and video poker machines and precious few table games. Downstairs, Drai’s draws a hip post-clubbing crowd, while lounge acts like ‘Big Elvis’ play upstairs. Parking is almost impossible here; try walking over from the monorail line instead.
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Orleans
A mile west of the Strip, this N’awlins-themed casino hotel has done a so-so job of re-creating the Big Easy. Among its many diversions are the 70-lane bowling alley, 18-screen cineplex and specialty bars like Brendan’s Irish Pub, which has live music some nights. Entertainment legends such as Willie Nelson and LeAnn Rimes have performed in the Orleans showroom, while megaconcerts and sports events take place in the arena. The high-ceilinged casino is an airy, rectangular room filled with thousands of ho-hum slot machines and table games.
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Tropicana
Built in 1957, the Trop has had half a century to sully its shine, lose its crowds and go the way of the Dunes and the Sands – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But thanks to a massive new facelift, it just keeps hanging in there. The sleek, new Miami-meets-Havana theme is a spirit-lifting change, especially in airy, light Paradise Tower rooms. Investigate the casino’s mini mob museum for more vintage Vegas atmosphere. Out back, the tropically inspired pool complex has multilevel lagoon pools, streaming waterfalls and classic swim-up blackjack tables.
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Hard Rock
The world’s first rock ’n’ roll casino, the hot, hot, hot Hard Rock embraces what may be the most impressive collection of rock-star memorabilia ever assembled under one roof. Among the priceless items being watched over by the ‘eye in the sky’ and eagle-eyed security guards suited up like bouncers are some of the more bodacious fashion statements by Elvis and Britney Spears; a custom motorcycle (donated by Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe) that once belonged to the Hell’s Angels gang; and Jim Morrison’s handwritten lyrics to one of The Doors’ greatest hits.
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