Slots Venues

Built on the site formerly occupied by the iconic Dunes hotel and casino, which was demolished in 1993, on the Las Vegas Strip, the Bellagio is one of the most famous casinos in the world. Nowadays owned and operated by MGM Resorts International, the Bellagio opened, to no little fanfare and at no little cost – the opening ceremony alone reputedly cost $88 million – in October, 1998.

Inspired by the town of the same name, which overlooks Lake Como, in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy, the Bellagio is renowned for its elegance. Externally, the Bellagio is best known for the ‘Fountains of Bellagio’, which are set in an artificial lake, covering 8 acres, or 3.2 hectares, between the hotel building and the Strip. At regular intervals throughout the afternoon and evening, anyone nearby can witness a choreographed water ‘ballet’, complete with illumination and musical accompaniment.

Internally, notwithstanding its central role in the Hollywood movie ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, which was released in 2001, the Bellagio is probably best known for its poker room, which plays host to high-profile World Poker Tour events, including the ‘Five Diamond World Poker Classic’in December each year. That said, the gaming floor as a whole is impressive enough, covering 116,000 square feet and offering 2,300 slots with jackpots of up to $2 million. Accommodation-wise, the Bellagio offers a total of 3,950 lavish rooms, of various shapes and sizes, most of which are located in the original, main tower.

Not to be confused with the former Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, now Park MGM, on the Las Vegas Strip, Casino de Monte Carlo, or Monte Carlo Casino, is located in the tiny, independent city-state of Monaco on the French Riviera. The Principality of Monaco is actually the second smallest country in the world, after the Vatican City State, but Monte Carlo Casino is one of four gambling establishments owned and operated by the state-controlled Société des Bains de Mer (SBM).

Founded in 1863 by businessman François Blanc, Monte Carlo Casino is magnificent, richly decorated building in the Belle Époque style. It was celebrated in the popular British music hall song, ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’, made famous by Charles Coborn, in the late nineteenth century and, more recently, has become synonymous with the image of James Bond, the fictional British Secret Service agent created by Ian Fleming in the early Fifties.

Monaco is known as a ‘Billionaires’ Playground’ and almost one in three of its population are millionaires. Paradoxically, Monaco residents are forbidden, by law, from gambling, so the so-called salons privés at Monte Carlo Casino are the preserve of high-rolling tourists and foreign residents. Quite rightly, Monte Carlo Casino has a reputation for class, sophistication and, of course, lavish wealth. However, despite some more exotic offerings, including chemin de fer and punto banco, table games also include blackjack, craps, poker and roulette, while Monte Carlo Casino has nearly 1,000 slot machines, some of which have a minimum stake, per line, of just €0.01.

Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, in Atlantic City, New Jersey has the distinction of being both the largest hotel in New Jersey, with just over 2,000 rooms, and the highest-grossing casino in Atlantic City. Opened in 2003, and designed as a gambling destination to rival those found in Las Vegas, Borgata was originally a joint venture between MGM Mirage and Boyd Gaming but, since 2016, has been owned outright, and operated by, MGM Resorts International. Borgata was, in fact, the first new property of its kind to open in Atlantic City for over a decade and has largely succeeded in its aim of rekindling interest in gambling in ‘America’s Favourite Playground’.

The casino floor, which occupies 161,000 square feet in total, offers 180 table games, including the usual selection of baccarat, craps, roulette and so on, and over 3,000 state-of-the-art slots, in various denominations. No pun intended, but poker is a big deal at Borgata, too; the poker room, which is the largest in Atlantic City, was installed as part of a $200 million expansion programme in late 2005 and early 2006, and features regular tournaments, including the World Poker Tour (WPT) Borgata Poker Open and Borgata Winter Poker Open. Sports bettors are also more than amply catered for at Borgata, with a sportsbook, aptly named the ‘Race & Sports Book’ – the only one of its kind in Atlantic City – providing access to thoroughbred harness racing and other sports via individual, flat-screen monitors.

Wynn Las Vegas, or simply Wynn, on the Las Vegas Strip, is the flagship of Wynn Resorts Ltd., the corporation founded by Steve Wynn, the former chairman of Mirage Resorts, Inc., in 2002. In 2000, Wynn sold Mirage Resorts to MGM Grand and, the same year, bought the Desert Inn, also on the Las Vegas Strip, for $270 million. To make way for the new resort, which nowadays covers 215 acres, or 87 hectares, Wynn demolished the main tower of the Desert Inn in 2001 and the remainder four years later.

After legal wrangling surrounding the purchase of private properties on Paradise Avenue, Wynn Las Vegas was built, at a cost of $2.7 billion, and opened on April 28, 2005, 55 years to the day since the original opening of the Desert Inn. Located at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue, Wynn Las Vegas has, in the meantime, become one of the most popular, if not the most popular, luxury resort and casino complexes on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, which stands 614 feet high, offers a total of 2,716 rooms, of various sizes, on 45 floors, while substantial portions of the complex are devoted to conference centre and retail space. The casino, itself, covers 189,000 square feet and offers a wide variety of table games and slots, plus a sportsbook and one of the most highly-regarded poker rooms in Las Vegas.