Casino games explained

How a casino floor is laid out

Almost every casino floor in Canada follows the same logic. Slot machines occupy the bulk of the space and the outer areas. The pit — the table games — sits toward the centre, where it can be supervised from a single point. The poker room, where one exists, is walled off. The high-limit rooms are on an upper level or behind their own entrance, and the sportsbook lounge is placed near the bar.

Knowing that layout is the single most useful thing for a first-time visitor, because it tells you where to walk. If the room feels overwhelming, the pit is quieter than the slot banks, the poker room is quieter than the pit, and the restaurants are quieter than all of it.

What follows is a plain description of each game type, written to explain what you are looking at. It is not strategy advice, and nothing here improves anybody's odds — the mathematics of every licensed game is fixed by the regulator and certified before the machine or table reaches the floor.

Casino games

Slots & slot machines

Slot machines account for the majority of every casino floor in Canada — usually between seventy and eighty-five per cent of the gaming positions in the room. They are also where the visual character of a floor comes from: the banks of cabinets, the lighting and the noise level are all set by the slot fleet rather than by the tables.

Three broad types sit side by side on a modern floor. Classic reel machines, sometimes called steppers, use physical or simulated spinning reels and a small number of paylines. Video slots use a screen, more paylines and bonus rounds built into the software. Progressive jackpot terminals are linked together, either within a property or across a province, so that a shared prize pool grows as the linked machines are played.

Denominations run from a penny upward. The high-limit slot rooms at the larger properties — Fallsview, Great Canadian Toronto, River Rock — hold the highest denomination cabinets behind their own entrance, usually with a separate cage and attendant.

Every legal slot machine in Canada operates under provincial licensing, with the return-to-player range set by the regulator and the machines certified before they reach the floor. Nothing about a machine's position on the floor, its recent history or the time of day changes the odds it runs at.

Casino games

Roulette

Roulette is a wheel game: the ball settles into a numbered pocket and bets are settled on the number, its colour, its column or the range it falls in. It is the easiest table game to watch and the easiest to join mid-shoe, which is why it usually sits near the front of a pit.

Canadian floors mostly run the American wheel, with both a zero and a double zero. Some properties also offer a European single-zero wheel, generally at a higher minimum and often inside the high-limit area. The difference between the two wheels is worth knowing before you sit down, because it changes the house edge.

Electronic roulette terminals — a physical wheel with betting screens around it — appear on most large floors and run at much lower minimums than the live tables. They are a reasonable way to see how the game moves before taking a seat at the felt.

Casino games

Baccarat

Baccarat — usually punto banco in its North American form — is a card game with only three possible bets: player, banker or tie. The rules for drawing a third card are fixed, so once the wager is placed there are no decisions left to make. That simplicity is exactly why it draws the volume it does.

In Metro Vancouver, baccarat and mini-baccarat account for a large share of all table play, and the pits at River Rock and Parq are built accordingly. Eastern floors run it too, but at nothing like the same density.

Mini-baccarat is the same game on a smaller table with a single dealer and lower minimums. It is where most visitors encounter the game for the first time.

Casino games

Live casino & electronic tables

Live casino simply means what the phrase says on a physical floor: tables dealt by professional dealers, in front of you, with cards and a wheel rather than a screen. It is the core of every pit in this digest, and the quality of the dealer roster is one of the things that separates a well-run casino floor from a merely large one.

Alongside the pit, most large properties run banks of electronic table terminals. These carry a live-dealer feed from a table in the room — often roulette or baccarat — and let players bet from a screen at a much lower minimum. They are popular with visitors who want the gaming experience without taking a seat at the felt.

Neither format is available from home through this site. StayDigest publishes reviews of physical venues; we do not host, link to or facilitate any form of remote gaming.

Casino games

Bingo

Bingo has largely left Canadian casino floors, moving to standalone halls and community venues. The significant exception in this digest is Club Regent in Winnipeg, which runs a purpose-built hall with a full daily programme and one of the most loyal audiences of any gaming room in the country.

Where bingo does appear inside a casino, it runs to a published schedule rather than continuously, and the room is used for other events in between. Check the calendar before travelling for it specifically.