Frequently asked questions
22 questions we are asked most often — about visiting a Canadian casino hotel, about the properties themselves, about how this site is funded and where to find support.
Visiting a casino hotel
It is set by each province. Nineteen in Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia; eighteen in Alberta, Quebec and Manitoba. The age applies to the gaming floor itself — under-age guests can still stay in the hotel and use the restaurants, but may not enter or walk through the casino.
No. At every property we review the hotel, restaurants, spa and theatre can be used without setting foot on the gaming floor, and at most of them you can reach your room without crossing it. Several — Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu at Charlevoix, Parq Vancouver — are worth booking purely as hotels.
Government-issued photo ID for everyone in the party, and a cash budget decided before you leave. ID is checked at the door at busy times and always at the cage for larger transactions.
Casual is accepted on the main floor everywhere we review. High-limit salons and signature restaurants expect smart dress; a few rooms refuse athletic wear or beachwear.
Almost never on the gaming floor — nearly every Canadian casino prohibits photography and filming there for guest privacy. Lobbies, restaurants and hotel areas are usually fine.
Indoor gaming floors are smoke-free across the provinces we cover, with designated outdoor areas. A small number of properties on First Nations land operate under different rules.
Casino hotels and resorts
In practice, scale. A casino hotel puts rooms and a gaming floor in one building. A casino resort adds the rest of a holiday around them — spa, theatre, several restaurants, conference space, sometimes golf or a marina. Fallsview, Caesars Windsor, Casino Rama and River Rock are resorts; Deerfoot Inn is a casino hotel.
Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, at roughly 200,000 square feet with around 3,000 slot machines and 130 gaming tables. Casino de Montréal is comparable in machine count but spread over five levels.
Fallsview if you want the full scale of a casino resort, Casino du Lac-Leamy if you want the best balance of hotel and gaming floor, and Casino Nova Scotia in Halifax if you would rather have a walkable city around you.
No. Dedicated poker rooms operate at the larger resorts — Fallsview, Caesars Windsor, River Rock, Pickering, River Cree and Casino Rama among them. Smaller floors run poker on limited hours or not at all, so check before travelling if it is the reason for the trip.
Sometimes, at the mid-market properties, where gaming revenue subsidises the rooms. At the flagship resorts in peak season the opposite is true: Fallsview in July carries the highest casino hotel rates in the country.
Free at most prairie and suburban properties — River Cree, Grey Eagle, Deerfoot, Casino Rama, Lac-Leamy, Casino de Montréal. Charged at every downtown property, and expensive at Parq Vancouver on event nights.
How this site works
No. Lodge Portfolio is published by Lodge Portfolio Media Inc., an independent company. We do not operate, own or manage any casino or gambling facility, we book and pay for our own stays, and we accept no advertising, hospitality or payment from operators.
No. Coverage and position are never for sale. Properties are welcome to write to us asking to be considered for review, and that is where the influence ends.
Out of 10, across four weighted criteria: casino floor 35%, rooms and resort 30%, dining and entertainment 20%, value 15%. They are editorial judgements from our own visits, not aggregated user ratings. The full methodology is on the about page.
Every review states the month it was last verified. Counts come from operator material checked against what we saw in the room, and they move constantly as machines are rotated — treat them as scale rather than inventory.
No, and we do not intend to. This site covers physical casino hotels and resorts in Canada. We publish no links to online gambling of any kind.
Please tell us — write to [email protected] or use the contact form. Corrections are the most useful mail we get, and substantive ones are noted on the review.
Gambling and support
No. No system changes the mathematics of a casino game, and publishing one would mean telling readers something untrue. Our games guide explains what each game is and how a round works, and stops there.
Free confidential support exists in every province. ConnexOntario on 1-866-531-2600 answers 24 hours a day and refers callers across Canada; the full provincial list, plus self-exclusion programmes and national organisations, is on our responsible gaming page.
A voluntary agreement barring you from casinos in a province for a period you choose — commonly six months to five years. Enrolment is free, confidential, takes under half an hour with photo ID, and also removes you from operator marketing.
A British Columbia information programme with advisors staffed inside casinos who will answer questions about odds, limits and the games with no pressure to play. It is the most visible responsible-gaming presence of any province.