Planning a casino hotel stay in Canada

What to expect on a first visit

A Canadian casino hotel is, first and last, a hotel. You check in at a desk, you take a lift to a room, and somewhere on the ground floor there is a large room full of slot machines and gaming tables that you are free to walk through, sit down in or ignore entirely. Nothing about the building requires you to gamble, and the resorts that score highest in this digest are the ones that make that easiest.

On arrival at the casino floor you will be asked for photo identification. Inside, the layout follows a predictable pattern: slot machines around the outside, table games in the centre, the poker room and high-limit salons behind their own doors, and the sportsbook lounge near a bar. Cash is exchanged for chips at the table or at the cage; machines take bills and print tickets.

The single most common first-visit mistake is arriving without a number in mind. Decide before you leave the room what the evening is worth to you, take that much and no card, and treat it the way you would treat tickets to a show — spent when you walk in.

Choosing a casino hotel

The properties in this digest fall into four rough categories, and knowing which one you want saves a lot of reading:

• Destination resorts — Fallsview, Caesars Windsor, Casino Rama, River Cree, Casino New Brunswick. Hotel, casino floor, theatre, spa and restaurants in one complex, built to hold you for two or three nights.
• Urban casino hotels — Parq Vancouver, River Rock, Casino Nova Scotia. A city hotel with a casino attached, where the city itself is the reason you came.
• Regional properties — Cascades Langley, Deerfoot Inn, Hard Rock Coquitlam, Grey Eagle. Mid-size floors with hotels or conference space, serving a region rather than a tourist market.
• Floors without rooms — Casino de Montréal, Casino Regina, Club Regent, Casino Niagara. Significant gaming venues where you sleep somewhere else nearby.

After that it is a question of what you want the weekend to contain. If the entertainment calendar matters, check it before choosing the property — several of these venues are the best rooms in their city, and a show night changes both the atmosphere and the room rate.

What a stay costs

Room rates across the digest run from roughly $120 a night at the regional properties to well over $400 for a falls-view room at Fallsview in July. The seasonal swing is larger than most travellers expect: the same room in Niagara Falls can triple between February and August.

Beyond the room, budget for parking where it is not free — downtown Vancouver, Halifax and the Niagara resorts — plus dinner, which at the steakhouse end of these properties is priced like any city restaurant. Theatre tickets are sold separately and are not discounted for hotel guests as a rule.

Set the gaming budget separately from all of that, in cash, before you arrive. It is the only part of the trip with no fixed price, and the only part where the number has to come from you.

Etiquette on the floor

• Wait for the hand to finish before joining a table, and put money on the felt rather than into the dealer's hand.
• Keep phones off the table. Photography is prohibited on most Canadian floors.
• Ask the dealer if you do not know the rules. On the properties in this digest, dealers will explain a game to a new player without any fuss — that is part of the job.
• Tipping dealers is customary but not obligatory, and it is normal to tip at the end of a session rather than each hand.
• Do not touch another player's chips, and do not offer advice on their hand unless asked.
• Drink service is available on most floors. It is worth remembering that alcohol and a fixed budget make poor companions.