Casino Hotels
Four large Canadian resort hotels — rooms, restaurants, theatres and spas — where a gaming floor is one facility among many.
These are casino hotels, described plainly. Each is a substantial resort property with guest rooms, dining, meeting space and, in most cases, a theatre that brings touring performances through the year; each also has a gaming floor, which is one feature of the building rather than its whole description. We cover them here for what they are as places to stay — the sites, the architecture, the setting — and we take no bookings and offer no gaming services of any kind.
The entries
Montreal Casino & Hotel
The complex on Île Notre-Dame is built into the old French and Québec pavilions from Expo 67, and the architecture is the first thing anyone notices — a stack of angled aluminium and glass volumes rising out of the Saint Lawrence, floodlit at night and visible from the city bank.
As a hotel it is an island property first: restaurants and lounges across several levels, event and show space, and the parkland of Parc Jean-Drapeau immediately outside for walking and cycling. The gaming floor is one part of that programme, spread over the upper levels of the pavilion building, and easy enough to leave behind by stepping out to the river path.
Fallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls
Fallsview is set on the escarpment above Niagara, and the site does most of the work: the guest floors and the main public rooms look straight out at the Horseshoe Falls, with the spray visible from bed on the right morning.
The resort runs as a full hotel — rooms, spa, a spread of restaurants from casual to formal, and a theatre that brings in touring acts through the year. The gaming floor sits at the base of the tower as one of those amenities rather than the whole of the address, and guests routinely spend a stay here without visiting it, walking down to the falls instead.
River Rock Casino Resort, Richmond
River Rock stands on the Fraser River in Richmond, British Columbia, minutes from Vancouver International Airport and connected to central Vancouver by the SkyTrain line that stops at its door. The property includes a marina, so arriving by boat is a genuine option.
It functions as a conference and events hotel for the region: a large theatre, ballrooms, several restaurants, and riverside rooms that look across the water to the delta flats. The casino floor is one of the resort's facilities, on the lower levels near the entrance.
Casino Rama Resort, Rama
Casino Rama sits on Chippewas of Rama First Nation land on the shore of Lake Couchiching, about ninety minutes north of Toronto in Ontario's cottage belt. The setting is rural and low — pine, water, and a great deal of sky.
The hotel side is substantial: several hundred rooms, a spa, a spread of restaurants, and a five-thousand-seat entertainment centre that has drawn major touring performers for decades. Gaming occupies one wing of the ground floor. Many guests come for a concert and a weekend on the lake, and treat it accordingly.