Casino destinations

Where to go for what

Big-field tournaments

Prague is the one that changed this year. WSOP Europe was staged in the city for the first time in its history in spring 2026, and EPT Prague returns to the Hilton on 2–13 December 2026. Two major festival windows, a cheap currency, and a walkable centre make it the best-value tournament trip in Europe.

Las Vegas remains the largest concentration of poker anywhere, with over 100 casinos and a summer series that dwarfs everything else. London covers the range from the members-only rooms of Mayfair to the large modern floors at Stratford, at Western European prices.

High-limit table play

Macau is the only destination on this list where baccarat, not poker or slots, is the main event. The Cotai resorts operate at a scale nothing in Europe approaches. Monte Carlo is the opposite trade: smaller, older, stricter on dress, and sold on the room rather than the game.

Friendly to a small bankroll

Reno exists in the Vegas shadow precisely because its minimums are lower, and the downtown is compact enough to walk between rooms. Prague is the European equivalent: cash games start around €1/€2 and a roulette seat can be had for roughly €2. Atlantic City sits between the two, with boardwalk resorts at a fraction of Strip pricing.

Integrated resorts, where the casino is the holiday

Manila is the underrated one: Entertainment City holds resorts on a Macau scale, with Okada running thousands of machines and hundreds of tables under one roof. St Julian's and Niagara Falls are the compact versions, where everything is walkable and the surroundings do half the work.

A city break that happens to have a casino

For most of the remaining destinations, the casino is one evening rather than the reason to fly. Barcelona, Madrid, Melbourne, Montreal, Berlin, Lisbon, New Orleans and Lake Tahoe all fall here. Paris is the odd one out: it has gaming clubs rather than casinos, with no slot machines at all. And Tokyo has no casino whatsoever, which is worth knowing before you plan around it. That is not a criticism; it is the honest way to plan the trip.

Four things to check before any casino trip

Age. The split is broadly 21 in the United States, Macau and the Philippines, and 18 across most of Europe. Canada varies by province. Bring a passport rather than a photocopy or a driving licence; door registration is routine and some venues keep you on file.

Currency. Play and pay in the local currency. Card terminals and casino cages will offer to convert to your own currency at their rate, which is always worse than your bank's. Decline it every time. Casinos that accept euros or dollars outside the eurozone or the US are offering convenience, not value.

Tax. This is the one most travellers never check, and it is the one that costs real money. Rules differ sharply: the Czech Republic taxes annual net gambling winnings above CZK 50,000 at 15%, while other jurisdictions tax at source, tax nothing, or leave it to your country of residence. Some countries will tax the same win twice absent a treaty. On anything festival-sized, take professional advice before you play, not after you cash.

Dress code and entry. These vary more than people expect within a single city. Monte Carlo and the Mayfair clubs enforce properly; Prague's rooms range from smart-only to no rules at all. Check the specific venue, not the city.

Gambling laws by country

Age, tax and regulator for every country covered. Three things that vary far more than travellers expect: the United States taxes recreational winnings as income while most of Europe does not, Canada has no federal gambling age at all, and Monaco bans its own residents from the casino outright.

Who owns these places

Casino ownership is more concentrated than the branding suggests, and 2026 has moved it more than any year in a decade: both Las Vegas giants are subject to take-private bids, and the company called Las Vegas Sands has owned nothing on the Strip since 2022. See who owns the casinos →

How these guides are written

Venue details are checked against operators' own published material and official tournament schedules, and each guide carries the month it was verified. Where we cannot confirm a venue is still trading, we remove it rather than leave it on the page, which is why some rooms you will find in older guides are absent here.

Casinos close, rebrand and change their minimums without announcement, and festival dates move. Treat the official links in each guide as the authority and this site as the starting point.

Gambling should be entertainment you have budgeted for. Our responsible gaming page covers limits, self-exclusion and where to get help.

The legal ages and tax treatments in the table above are checked against a regulator or a reputable legal summary before a country is added here, and a country whose sources disagree is left out rather than published with a guess. Last reviewed August 2026.