World’s Most Famous Casinos: 12 Legends to Visit in 2027

Most casinos are interchangeable rooms full of machines. A dozen are not. The salons of Monte-Carlo, a Renaissance palace on Venice’s Grand Canal, a spa house on the edge of the Black Forest, the fountains on the Las Vegas Strip and a lotus-shaped tower in Macau are casinos people travel to see, many of them without placing a bet.

This guide tells the story behind each of the twelve, what changed at them in 2025 and 2026, and the rules at the door today: age, ID, entry fees and dress codes. Every date and figure comes from the casino itself, its owner’s annual report, a regulator or a museum.

The 12 most famous casinos at a glance

Casino	Where	Opened	Famous for
Casino de Monte-Carlo	Monaco	1863	Belle Époque salons, GoldenEye
Casino di Venezia	Venice, Italy	Tradition from 1638	A Grand Canal palace, Wagner
Casino Baden-Baden	Germany	1824 (Kurhaus)	French-style gaming halls of 1855
Casino Estoril	Portugal	1931	Banca Francesa, Lisbon’s riviera
The Hippodrome	London, UK	2012 (theatre 1900)	A Frank Matcham theatre
Bellagio	Las Vegas, USA	1998	The fountains, the poker room
Caesars Palace	Las Vegas, USA	1966	The first themed resort
MGM Grand	Las Vegas, USA	1993	The bronze lion, title fights
The Venetian Macao	Macau	2007	About 659 tables, gondolas
Grand Lisboa	Macau	2007	The lotus tower, five Michelin stars
Marina Bay Sands	Singapore	2010	The SkyPark, the entry levy
WinStar World Casino	Oklahoma, USA	1991 (bingo hall)	“World’s Largest Casino” (its claim)

How the casino was born

The word is Italian: casa means house, and a casino was a “little house”. Italians used it for anything from a farm office to a lakeside cabin before the meaning settled on a place for gambling, a sense that, according to The Saturday Evening Post, took hold in English around the start of the 19th century. Merriam-Webster dates the first known English use of the word to 1744.

The first public gambling house came long before the word stuck. In 1638 the Venetian republic gave Marco Dandolo permission to open public gaming rooms on the piano nobile of his palace at San Moisè, near Piazza San Marco: the Ridotto, which the Metropolitan Museum of Art calls the first public gambling casino. The aim was control, not encouragement. Gambling was everywhere in Venice, and licensing it in one public place let the state supervise it and profit from it. It opened during Carnival, and visitors had to wear masks. The Ridotto was enlarged in 1768, but so many fortunes were lost there that the Grand Council closed it for good in 1774.

The next chapter was written in spa towns. Baden-Baden’s Kurhaus was built between 1821 and 1824 with gambling rooms in the plans, and after France banned gambling in 1837, the French entrepreneur Jacques Bénazet took it over in 1838 and enlarged it for more gambling tables. Monaco followed: its gaming company, Société des Bains de Mer, was founded in 1863 and opened the casino that would give a whole district its name.

Las Vegas came from a single law. Nevada had legalised some forms of gambling in 1869 and banned all games of chance from 1910; on 19 March 1931 Governor Fred Balzar signed Assembly Bill 98, introduced by Assemblyman Phil Tobin, and gambling was legal again. On 2 April 1931 Clark County licensed the first eight gambling businesses under the new law, among them the Northern Club and the Las Vegas Club. The state’s Gaming Control Board followed in 1955. In the 2000s the centre of gravity moved east, to the Cotai Strip in Macau and the bay in Singapore.

Europe: the casinos that invented the idea

The main facade of the Casino de Monte-Carlo with its clock and twin towers, seen across the gardens — The Casino de Monte-Carlo. Photo: Alexkom000, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

1. Casino de Monte-Carlo, Monaco

No casino is more famous, and few are smaller. SBM’s own history dates the opening to the spring of 1863; on 1 June 1866 Prince Charles III decreed that the company’s new district would be called Monte Carlo. The original buildings were demolished in 1878, and Charles Garnier built the theatre that opened on 25 January 1879 with Sarah Bernhardt on stage. The gaming rooms grew around it: Garnier’s Salle des Amériques in 1881, then the two Salons Touzet in 1890, which still lead to the private rooms.

Inside, the floor is modest by modern standards. SBM reports seven different table games and 174 machines here, and about 50 tables across its two Monte-Carlo casinos. What it lacks in size it makes up in money: table games at the Casino de Monte-Carlo took €115.3 million in the year to 31 March 2026, up 40%. Scenes of GoldenEye (1995) were filmed in the casino, and the building is a state asset in the literal sense: when SBM’s gaming privilege ends, the casino and the Place du Casino pass to the State of Monaco free of charge. That privilege runs to 31 March 2027, and renewal talks were still under way in July 2026.

Visiting: gaming rooms open at 2pm and cost €20, including a €10 voucher; you need to be 18, with a national ID card or passport (no photocopies). There is a dress code (no shorts, sportswear or trainers, and no T-shirts after 7pm), and Monegasque citizens are not allowed to play. Morning heritage visits from 10am let anyone see the salons.

2. Casino di Venezia, Venice

The Casino di Venezia calls itself the oldest gaming house in the world and dates its tradition to the Ridotto of 1638. The modern municipal casino is younger: the City of Venice bought Ca’ Vendramin Calergi in 1946 and the casino moved into the palace in 1948, according to the Italian heritage trust FAI. The building is the attraction. Mauro Codussi designed the Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal, and Richard Wagner rented its mezzanine in 1882 and died there on 13 February 1883; his rooms are now a Wagner museum.

It is also Italy’s top-earning casino: €120.2 million in 2025 across its two venues, a 38.4% share of the four Italian casinos’ takings. The operator calls itself the European leader in chemin de fer, and hosts the Italian Chemin de Fer championship in the palace.

Visiting: since March 2022 the palace has opened only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 8.15pm to 3.15am. Entry is €50 with €20 to play included, and free for guests of Venice hotels that accredit them by 6pm. The minimum age is 18, with original ID.

The Grand Canal facade of Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, home of the Casino di Venezia, with a casino boat in front — Ca’ Vendramin Calergi on the Grand Canal. Photo: Wolfgang Moroder, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

3. Casino Baden-Baden, Germany

Baden-Baden’s casino occupies the Kurhaus, the classicist spa house Friedrich Weinbrenner built between 1821 and 1824 with gambling rooms already in the brief. Its golden age began in 1838, when Jacques Bénazet took over after France’s 1837 ban, and in 1855 new gaming halls decorated in styles running from Louis XIII to Louis XVI were inaugurated. Gambling stopped after the 1872 season and the casino stayed shut for more than 60 years; in 2025 it celebrated 75 years since its post-war reopening. The casino itself says Marlene Dietrich loved it.

Visiting: the casino is run by a company owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The minimum age is 21, the classic games cost €5 to enter, and men need long trousers and a jacket at the tables (one can be borrowed at reception for €10). Morning guided tours show the halls without the dress code.

4. Casino Estoril, Portugal

Casino Estoril opened on the evening of 15 August 1931 on the estate of the Figueiredo family, whose Hotel Palácio had opened next door the year before. In 1958 Teodoro dos Santos’s Estoril-Sol took over, and the casino moved into a new building about ten years later. The operator bills it as the largest casino in Europe, and its tables include Banca Francesa, a three-dice game of Portuguese origin that was once played only in Portuguese casinos.

It is not all glamour: gaming revenue fell 13% to €43.9 million in 2025, and Estoril-Sol’s 2025 accounts say the concession company needs about €35 million of fresh capital to meet the legal equity minimum. Its concession runs to 31 December 2037, and new gaming-room layouts are being installed from 2025 to 2027.

Visiting: open daily from 3pm to 3am, 18 and over, with registration and ID at the door; there is no formal dress code. Estoril is 18 km from Lisbon, about 30 minutes by train.

5. The Hippodrome Casino, London

The Hippodrome is a casino inside a famous theatre. Frank Matcham built the London Hippodrome between 1895 and 1900, and it opened on 15 January 1900 as the West End’s first “circus theatre”, with a 100,000-gallon water tank for aquatic spectaculars. Harry Houdini performed there in 1904; from 1958 to 1983 it was the Talk of the Town, where Judy Garland gave her final UK performance, the subject of the film Judy (2019). The building is Grade II listed.

The Thomas family turned it into a casino, opened on 13 July 2012 by Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London. It bills itself as the UK’s largest casino and entertainment venue: 80,000 square feet over seven floors, with a PokerStars LIVE poker room and, since October 2025, a Paddy Power sportsbook.

Visiting: open 24 hours (except Christmas Day), free entry, 18 and over with photo ID if you look under 25, no set dress code. It sits directly above Leicester Square tube station.

Las Vegas: the Strip legends

The Fountains of Bellagio in full display at dusk, with the Bellagio tower behind the lake — The Fountains of Bellagio. Photo: Bernard Spragg, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

6. Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio opened on 15 October 1998 at a cost of $1.6 billion, a resort Steve Wynn conceived and MGM Resorts later bought. Its calling card is free and outside: the Fountains of Bellagio, designed with WET Design, stretch more than 1,000 feet across the lake and shoot water as high as 460 feet. Shows run every 30 minutes in the afternoon and every 15 minutes from 8pm to midnight. Inside, the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens are replanted for each season, and “O” by Cirque du Soleil plays in a theatre styled after a European opera house.

The casino is mid-sized by Strip standards: MGM’s 2025 annual report lists about 154,000 square feet, 154 table games (not counting poker) and 1,281 slots. The poker room is the famous part: Bellagio says it deals the only medium-to-high-limit Limit Hold’em games in Las Vegas. The real estate belongs to a venture in which MGM keeps 5% and Blackstone’s BREIT and Realty Income hold the rest; MGM runs the resort under a lease. Le Cirque, open since the resort’s debut, closed for good in August 2026.

Visiting: free entry, 21 to gamble under Nevada law, and smoking only in designated areas.

7. Caesars Palace, Las Vegas

Caesars Palace opened on 5 August 1966, built by developer Jay Sarno, and the UNLV historian Michael Green calls it “really the first luxury themed hotel”. Sixty years on it covers 85 acres in the middle of the Strip, with six hotel towers and 3,980 rooms, the 4,300-seat Colosseum for residencies, and the Forum Shops. Under the casino dome hangs a chandelier of about 12,000 crystals, and the world’s first Nobu Hotel opened inside the resort in 2013.

The casino covers about 124,500 square feet with about 170 tables and 1,310 slots, according to Caesars Entertainment’s 2025 annual report, and its poker room carries the World Series of Poker name. VICI Properties owns the buildings and leases them to Caesars. The resort is midway through an upgrade that runs to 2027, starting with nearly 1,000 Augustus Tower suites in 2026.

Visiting: free entry, 21 to gamble, casual dress on the casino floor, and smoking only in designated areas.

8. MGM Grand, Las Vegas

When MGM Grand opened on 18 December 1993, its bronze lion became the Strip’s mascot: a 45-foot, 100,000-pound statue on a 25-foot pedestal at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, which MGM calls the largest bronze statue in the United States. The resort is enormous: 6,488 rooms and suites counting The Signature towers, according to MGM’s 2025 annual report. Its MGM Grand Garden Arena staged Tyson against Holyfield in 1997 and Mayweather against Pacquiao in 2015, and the arena’s fact sheet counts more than 300 boxing title fights and 43 UFC events.

The casino covers about 144,000 square feet with 105 table games and 1,234 slots, and the 17-table poker room is non-smoking and open 24 hours. In 2026 the first MICHELIN Guide Southwest gave Joël Robuchon two stars, the only two-star restaurant in the guide, and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon one. The live lion habitat many visitors remember is gone: it closed on 31 January 2012, and the lions returned to their trainer’s ranch.

Visiting: free entry, 21 to gamble, smoking only in designated areas.

Asia: Macau and Singapore

The Venetian Macao on the Cotai Strip, seen across the water with its campanile and hotel tower — The Venetian Macao on the Cotai Strip. Photo: Störfix, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons.

9. The Venetian Macao

The Venetian Macao opened in August 2007 as the anchor of the Cotai Strip, and it is still one of the largest casinos anywhere: Sands China’s 2025 annual report lists about 503,000 square feet of gaming space (including support areas), about 659 table games and about 1,137 slot machines at the end of 2025, with 2,905 suites in the hotel tower above. Gondola rides run daily, the Shoppes at Venetian cover about 960,000 square feet, and the 14,000-seat Venetian Arena hosted the NBA China Games in October 2026.

Under Macau’s 2022 gaming law, the casino floor now belongs to the government and is handed back to the operator for the length of its concession, which runs to 31 December 2032.

Visiting: Macau’s minimum age is 21; there is no entry fee, and Macau residents can play. Smoking is allowed only in designated lounges.

10. Grand Lisboa, Macau

The Grand Lisboa tower, 260 metres tall and shaped after Macau’s lotus symbol, is the skyline of the Macau peninsula. Its casino and restaurants opened on 11 February 2007 and the hotel in December 2008. In the lobby sits the Star of Stanley Ho, a 218.08-carat diamond that the Gemological Institute of America rates as the world’s largest cushion-shaped diamond. Upstairs, Robuchon au Dôme holds three MICHELIN stars in the 2026 Hong Kong and Macau guide, its 18th year in a row, and The Eight holds two.

The end of 2025 closed Macau’s satellite casinos, but Grand Lisboa was never one of them: it is a casino SJM runs itself. Its gaming revenue rose 7.1% in the first half of 2026.

Visiting: the same Macau rules apply: 21 and over, no fee, smoking only in designated lounges.

The three hotel towers of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore with the SkyPark across the top — Marina Bay Sands. Photo: Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

11. Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Three 55-storey towers topped by the Sands SkyPark and its 150-metre infinity pool: that is the silhouette of Marina Bay Sands, which opened in 2010. The casino is one of only two in the country, and Las Vegas Sands’ 2025 annual report lists about 157,000 square feet of gaming space, about 568 table games and about 3,000 slots and electronic tables. The tables deal baccarat, roulette, sic bo and blackjack. An expansion with a new hotel tower and a 15,000-seat arena broke ground in 2025; Sands now expects it to open in January 2031.

Visiting: the minimum age is 21 and the casino is open 24 hours. Foreigners enter free with a passport, but Singapore citizens and permanent residents must buy an entry levy, set in the Casino Control Act at S$150 per 24 hours or S$3,000 a year.

The biggest: WinStar World Casino

12. WinStar World Casino and Resort, Oklahoma

For sheer size, the name that comes up is WinStar, in Thackerville, Oklahoma. It calls itself the “World’s Largest Casino”, which is the operator’s own claim, and its official site lists nearly 400,000 square feet of gaming floor, more than 10,000 electronic games and nine themed gaming plazas named after world cities, strung along a mile of floor. The Chickasaw Nation owns it, and its general manager traces it back to a bingo hall “in the middle of a field” in 1991.

Two caveats for 2026: the official site lists the 55-table poker room, bingo and off-track betting as temporarily closed, and the table-game count is modest for the size, about 92 according to WinStar’s casino games page.

Visiting: open 24 hours, free entry, and the minimum age is 18, younger than in most US casinos.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

Monte-Carlo: SBM finished a €4.5 million, three-year casino renovation and had a record year, but its gaming privilege expires on 31 March 2027, with renewal still under discussion in July 2026.
Macau: the satellite casinos run in other companies’ hotels closed by the end of 2025 under the 2022 gaming law. The big operators’ own casinos, Grand Lisboa and the Venetian Macao among them, were not affected.
Venice: the Grand Canal palace still opens only from Friday to Sunday, the pattern since March 2022.
London: Paddy Power opened its first in-casino sportsbook at the Hippodrome in October 2025.
Singapore: work on Marina Bay Sands’ new tower began in 2025, and the S$150 daily levy for citizens and permanent residents is now written into the Casino Control Act.
Las Vegas: the World Series of Poker has not been at the Rio since 2021; from 2022 it moved to Bally’s (now Horseshoe Las Vegas) and Paris Las Vegas. Bellagio’s Le Cirque closed in August 2026, Caesars Palace turned 60 midway through an upgrade that runs to 2027, and MGM Grand finished a $300 million remodel of its main-tower rooms.
Michelin returns to Las Vegas: the first MICHELIN Guide Southwest in 2026 gave Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand two stars.

Before you go: the rules at the door

Every casino in this list checks age and ID, and several have rules that catch visitors out. Here is what applies at each one.

Casino	Minimum age	Entry	Dress code
Casino de Monte-Carlo	18	€20 from 2pm; ID card or passport	No shorts, sportswear or trainers
Casino di Venezia	18	€50 (with €20 to play)	Decorous; no beachwear
Casino Baden-Baden	21	€5 for the tables; ID	Jacket for men at the tables
Casino Estoril	18	Free; ID registration	None published
The Hippodrome	18	Free; ID if you look under 25	None set
Bellagio, Caesars Palace, MGM Grand	21	Free	None on the casino floor
Macau (Venetian, Grand Lisboa)	21	Free	None published
Marina Bay Sands	21	Free for foreigners; levy for locals	None published
WinStar	18	Free	None published

Frequently asked questions

What is the most famous casino in the world?

The Casino de Monte-Carlo is the one most people picture: open since 1863, rebuilt by Charles Garnier from 1878 and filmed in GoldenEye. Among modern resorts, the Bellagio’s fountains on the Las Vegas Strip and Marina Bay Sands’ SkyPark in Singapore are the best-known casino landmarks.

What is the oldest casino in the world?

The first public casino was the Ridotto in Venice, licensed by the Venetian republic in 1638 and closed in 1774. Today’s Casino di Venezia dates its tradition to the Ridotto, but it has been in its palace on the Grand Canal since 1948. Among buildings still used as casinos, Baden-Baden’s Kurhaus (1824) and Monte-Carlo (1863) are older.

What is the largest casino in the world?

WinStar World Casino in Oklahoma calls itself the world’s largest, with nearly 400,000 square feet of gaming floor by its own figures. In Macau, the Venetian Macao reports about 503,000 square feet including gaming support areas, and more table games (about 659) than any casino in this list.

Can you visit the Monte-Carlo casino without gambling?

Yes. Heritage visits run every morning from 10am to 1pm and cost €20 for adults, €15 for ages 13 to 17, and nothing for children aged 6 to 12. The Atrium and Le Salon Rose restaurant have no age limit either.

Do I need a passport to enter a casino abroad?

Usually you need an original photo ID. Monte-Carlo accepts a national ID card or passport but no photocopies or digital IDs; Singapore’s casinos use your passport to confirm you are a foreigner and exempt from the levy; Estoril registers every visitor’s ID.

Which casino was used in GoldenEye?

Scenes of GoldenEye (1995) were filmed in the Casino de Monte-Carlo.

If you are practising before a trip, our guides to blackjack strategy and roulette odds show which bets cost least. And if the trip is not happening this year, our online casino reviews cover the licensed sites we rate.

Sources

History

Europe

Las Vegas

Asia

WinStar

Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Casino de Monte-Carlo by Alexkom000 (CC BY 4.0); Ca’ Vendramin Calergi by Wolfgang Moroder (CC BY-SA 3.0); The Venetian Macao by Störfix, CC BY-SA 3.0 de; Marina Bay Sands by Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0; Fountains of Bellagio by Bernard Spragg (CC0); cover photo by Miguel Mendez (CC BY 2.0).

The World’s Most Famous Casinos: 12 Legends and the Stories Behind Them