Land-based casinos in Ontario

Ontario has more land-based casinos than any other province, but they're spread across a huge map. A Windsor regular and a Thunder Bay regular are effectively playing in different worlds. This guide to land-based casinos in Ontario sorts the province by region, picks out the floors that deserve a trip, and explains the changes of the last three years that most older guides still get wrong.

The venue cards above cover every site we track, with addresses and links. Below is the context those cards can't give you.

How many casinos does Ontario have?

We list 30 OLG-authorized gaming sites as of October 2026. That figure comes from operator websites and news coverage, because OLG's own "Find a Casino" page on olg.ca blocks automated access. Its 2022 version showed 15 casinos plus 13 racetrack slot sites, which gives you a sense of the split: roughly half the network is full casinos with tables, the rest are slot rooms attached to horse tracks.

You may have seen claims of "more than 71 Ontario casinos". That number was never right for physical sites. It mixed up gaming venues with online brands, charity bingo halls or both. If you want the official current count, check olg.ca directly; sites open, rebrand and relocate often enough that any third-party list, ours included, can lag by a few weeks.

Who owns the building, who runs the floor

Under section 207 of the Criminal Code, casino gaming in Canada has to be "conducted and managed" by a province. In Ontario that province-side body is the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. OLG authorizes every land-based site and keeps control of the gaming, while private companies, called service providers, handle the day-to-day: staff, restaurants, renovations, marketing.

OLG grouped the sites into regional bundles and tendered them out. The result today looks like this:

• Great Canadian Entertainment: the Toronto resort, Pickering, Ajax, the three Elements casinos at racetracks plus Brantford, the Shorelines properties in Eastern Ontario, and Great Blue Heron on behalf of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.
• Gateway Casinos & Entertainment: most of Southwestern, Central and Northern Ontario under the Gateway, Cascades, Starlight and Playtime names, plus Casino Rama for the Chippewas of Rama First Nation.
• Mohegan: the Niagara pair, Fallsview and Casino Niagara, since winning that bundle in 2019.
• Caesars Entertainment: Caesars Windsor.
• Hard Rock: the Ottawa resort.

Why does this matter to a player? Loyalty programs follow the operator, not OLG. Don't expect points earned at Pickering to count at Casino Rama: two different companies run them.

The biggest floors in the province

Size isn't everything, but if you're driving a couple of hours you probably want a room where you can switch from slots to a blackjack table without waiting. These are the largest venues by slot count, with figures taken from operator pages and opening coverage. Counts drift as machines are swapped, so treat them as approximate.

Only seven of the 30 sites have a hotel attached. Six are in that table; the seventh is Great Blue Heron, with 116 rooms on Scugog Island.

Region by region

Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe

The Toronto resort next to Woodbine Racetrack is the largest casino in Canada and, frankly, the default answer for anyone in the city asking where to play. It has a 400-room hotel and a concert venue called The Theatre. Pickering, east along the 401, is the more relaxed alternative, with a hotel, The Arena and a sportsbook.

West of the city, Elements Casino Mohawk sits at the Woodbine Mohawk Park harness track and keeps a poker room. Flamboro near Dundas and Ajax Downs are slot-focused racetrack rooms. If you mainly want tables, skip those two.

Niagara

Fallsview is the flagship: 3,000-plus slots, about 100 tables, a 374-room hotel and the Fallsview Privé VIP area, all above the Horseshoe Falls. Casino Niagara on Clifton Hill is older (1996), smaller and noisier, and it's where the poker room is. Plenty of visitors do both in one evening; they're a short walk or shuttle apart.

Southwestern Ontario

Caesars Windsor faces Detroit across the river and draws a lot of American traffic. Two hotel towers, 758 rooms, a 14-table poker room. It feels more like a Las Vegas property than anything else in the province.

London's casino finished a C$50 million, 27-month renovation in 2026 and reopened as Cascades Casino London with 891 slots, 18 table games and a Proline+ sportsbook lounge. Brantford is the one to know if you prefer cards: 55 tables against roughly 550 slots, an unusual ratio for Ontario. Sarnia has Starlight Casino Point Edward under the Blue Water Bridge, and the smaller rooms in Woodstock, Clinton, Chatham and Hanover cover the rest of the region.

Central Ontario

Casino Rama, near Orillia, is owned by the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and runs a lakeside resort with 289 rooms. Georgian Downs in Innisfil is the busiest stop off Highway 400, and Gateway has a new Innisfil site in the works. Wasaga Beach opened in November 2022 with slots and electronic tables only.

Eastern Ontario

Ottawa finally got a proper resort in July 2025. More on that below. Along the 401 corridor, Great Canadian's Shorelines brand runs Belleville, Peterborough and the Thousand Islands casino in Gananoque, all mid-sized floors with a couple of dozen tables each.

Northern Ontario

Distances are long and the casinos are small. Sault Ste. Marie (opened 1999) and Thunder Bay each have around 450 slots and a modest table section. Sudbury's casino in Chelmsford added six live dealer tables in August 2026, the first live tables that market has had. Cascades North Bay, opened in March 2022, offers 300 slots, six live tables and ten electronic ones.

What changed between 2023 and 2026

A lot. If a site still tells you to visit "Casino Woodbine" or "Rideau Carleton Raceway", it hasn't been updated in years.

1. June 2023: Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto opened and replaced Casino Woodbine, jumping to 4,800 slots and 145 tables.
2. July 3, 2025: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Ottawa opened on the former Rideau Carleton site, Canada's first Hard Rock resort, with a 150-room hotel and an 1,800-seat venue.
3. December 2025: OLG reversed plans to close several racetrack slot rooms in March 2026 and extended the racetrack program. Kawartha Downs and the Hiawatha Horse Park room in Sarnia stayed open as a result.
4. June 2026: the London renovation wrapped up and the property switched to the Cascades name.
5. August 2026: live tables arrived in Sudbury.

The Niagara bundle is a quieter part of the story. Mohegan took over Fallsview and Casino Niagara in 2019 through OLG's procurement, and that contract shapes how the two Niagara properties are marketed and reinvested in today.

At the door: 19+ and photo ID

You must be 19 or older to enter any Ontario casino gaming floor. Bring government-issued photo ID such as a driver's licence or passport, and expect to show it. Security staff check younger-looking guests at the entrance, and the cage may ask again before paying out larger wins. Federal anti-money-laundering rules also require casinos to identify customers on large cash transactions of C$10,000 or more, so a big cash-out takes a few extra minutes.

Every OLG site has PlaySmart information on the floor, and OLG runs a voluntary self-exclusion program for its land-based venues. Help is free and confidential at ConnexOntario, 1-866-531-2600, around the clock. Our responsible gambling page covers limits and warning signs in more detail.

Going in person or playing online

Both are legal in Ontario, and many players do both. They suit different evenings.

The casino trip gives you the atmosphere, the food, a real dealer shuffling real cards, and a firm end point when you walk out to the parking lot. The downside is the drive, the table minimums on a busy Saturday, and limited choice in the North, where your nearest live roulette table may be hundreds of kilometres away.

Playing at an operator registered with the AGCO and live in the iGaming Ontario market gives you thousands of games and lower stakes, with the same 19+ rule. You must be physically inside Ontario when you play; geolocation checks that. If what you miss is the table itself, a live dealer casino streams blackjack, roulette and baccarat from a studio with a human croupier. And if you want the experience from the couch or a hotel room, our guide to mobile casinos compares the apps.

One honest observation: online sessions have no natural closing time. Set a deposit limit before you start, the same way you'd decide how much cash to bring to Fallsview.

New to the regulated online side? Start from our home page, which lists only operators registered in the province.