Known as the gateway to Canada’s North, Edmonton is one of Canada’s sunniest cities and a great place for a gambling getaway. As Canada’s number one ‘festival city,’ Edmonton is vibrant and buzzing with activity all year round, so there’s never a bad time to visit. 

There are just shy of two dozen casinos spread all over Edmonton, with some nestled deep within the heart of downtown and others just a hop, skip and a jump away from Edmonton International Airport. Whether you’re here for a short-term layover or an all-inclusive staycation, Edmonton’s casinos offer something for everyone.

No matter the length of your stay, you don’t want to waste time umm-ing and ahh-ing over which casino to choose. That’s where we come in! We’ve compiled this handy list of Edmonton’s top casinos to help narrow down your search and pick the best option for your needs, whether that’s proximity to public transport or child-friendly accommodation. 

We consider numerous factors to provide an overall image of each casino, including game variety, dining options, hotels, wager limits, location, atmosphere, promotions, and more. Continue reading our review of the best casinos in Edmonton to discover the perfect place to play. 

The newly renovated PURE Casino Edmonton is one of four PURE properties in North America. Owned and operated by PURE Canadian Gaming, the 72,000-square-foot venue has almost 1,000 slots and more than 25 live dealer tables. You’ve got five options for eating and drinking, 

PURE regularly updates its casino with new and exciting games. For instance, the casino recently added DJ Wild Stud Poker to its table games collection. Though there aren’t as many live dealer tables on offer as some other Edmonton casinos, it does provide a good variety of blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, and poker games. Tables are open from 10am until 3am, while slots are open round-the-clock.

A big highlight of PURE Casino Edmonton is its poker room. Open 24/7, the poker room hosts daily $80 entry tournaments and monthly $250 and $350 tournaments for serious poker pros. It’s part of the PURE Poker Tour circuit and regularly adds fun mini-games and variations to its tables (including Single and Double Board Bomb Pots, Run It Twice, and 5-Card PLO). The poker room is one of the most popular in Edmonton, rated just shy of five stars on PokerAtlas. 

PURE Casino Edmonton also offers a wide range of dining promotions, including daily dinner specials, discounted snacks for late-night gamblers, free ice cream on weekends, and drink discounts during playoffs. 

For entertainment beyond the casino floor, The Mezz and The Center Bar offer food and drinks in a sports bar setup. Multiple screens show all the biggest games, so you never miss a second of the action, and The Mezz shows the most popular pay-per-view sports. Meanwhile, The Social Room is a banquet-style dining hall with free live entertainment from local bands and artists.  

For more information, read our full Pure Casino Edmonton review.

Century Casino Edmonton is one of the smallest casinos on this list, boasting just 35,000 square feet of gaming space. That said, it fits plenty of slots and table games on its little casino floor. There are well over 800 slot machines and more than 20 tables operated by expert dealers, with enough space between them that you’re not playing elbow-to-elbow with your neighbour. High rollers are well catered for, with a dedicated High Limit area boasting $25 spins. 

Unlike many of Edmonton’s casinos, Century has no poker room. However, there are multiple poker games on the general gaming floor, plus some lesser-used variants like Three and Four Card poker. There are also occasional tournaments in which to get involved. 

Alongside the gaming floor, you’ll find several bars and restaurants, a 26-room hotel, a showroom, a sports lounge, an off-track betting area, and a comedy club. The latter features comedians from far and wide, starring both amateur local and professional comedians. The off-track betting facility is brand new and simulcasts all the biggest races from Australia and North America daily.

Because it’s such a small venue, you shouldn’t expect the most tremendous and electrifying atmosphere. However, the casino is around a 5-minute walk from the Belvedere LRT Station, where you can take a 15-minute train to downtown Edmonton and catch an Oilers game at Rogers Place. The hotel has all the amenities you need for a quality night’s sleep and is more budget-friendly than many on-site casino hotels.

Staff are constantly circulating the casino floor, ready to pay any jackpots and fix any older machines that short circuit during gameplay. After you finish gambling, visit one of many in-house restaurants, such as the Mid City Grill, the Century Bar and Sports Lounge, or one of the many bars dotted around the casino. 

For more information, read our full Century Casino Edmonton review.

Nestled right in the heart of downtown Edmonton sits Grand Villa Casino. Located in the vibrant ICE District and with Rogers Place right next door, Grand Villa is a popular place to play among locals, tourists, and hockey fans alike. At 60,000 square feet and with less than 600 slots, it’s not the biggest casino in Edmonton. However, the location is the real selling point. 

Speaking of location, Grand Villa Casino is probably the best casino to pick if you’re visiting from out of town and want to soak in as much of the city’s culture as possible. Known as Canada’s ‘festival city,’ Edmonton hosts more than 50 festivals annually, many of which happen near the casino. Although there is no on-site accommodation at Grand Villa, many affordable options are nearby. 

Grand Villa has a fantastic atmosphere in the evenings, particularly on weekends and after an Oilers game. Many hockey fans will opt for a post-game drink or round of roulette at the casino, so it is always buzzing and busy. The tables often fill up, and you might need to wait a while for a free spot, but there are always enough slot machines to play in the meantime. 

The casino has one restaurant, MATCH. It is the restaurant chain of the casino’s owner, Gateway Casinos & Entertainment, and serves up reliable and tasty dishes and has a daily Happy Hour with slashed drink prices. The Centro Bar is the only other place to grab a drink, so wait times can get a little long during peak hours. However, this is a small price to pay for the electric atmosphere you have on game days. 

For more information, read our full Grand Villa Casino Edmonton review.

PURE Casino Yellowhead is the second PURE-branded casino in Edmonton. A 15-minute drive from downtown Edmonton, PURE Casino Yellowhead is a little out of the way and offers a more relaxed atmosphere than Edmonton’s downtown casinos. With 3,000 more square footage and around 200 fewer slots, PURE Casino Yellowhead is pretty much identical to its Edmonton counterpart. 

Poker pros will be very content at PURE Casino Yellowhead. The 24-hour poker room recently replaced its gaming structure, abandoning the previous trifecta of fixed mini jackpots in favour of uncapped progressive jackpots, allowing you to walk away with an eye-watering prize. Daily tournaments are from Tuesday to Saturday, with $80, $100, or $200 buy-ins. 

There are 26 live dealer tables at Yellowhead, the same as the Edmonton venue. Like the poker progressives, the casino has a table games progressive jackpot network up for grabs on some of its live dealer tables. You can also play all the exclusive Alberta progressive jackpot slots like American Original and Alberta Gold, with prizes starting at $20,000 and only growing larger. 

The Pearl Showroom provides entertainment outside of slots and table betting, boasting a full-service bar and state-of-the-art AV system. Though you won’t find any big-name artists performing here, you can catch a tribute version for a fraction of the price. From Seger to Springsteen, you can enjoy a night of world-class entertainment for under $40. The showroom hosts non-musical, one-off events like Art Battle and André-Philippe Gagnon.

There are plenty of promotions to keep loyal players rewarded throughout the year, including cash giveaways and reduced drink prices for every round the Oilers reach. Yellowhead offers all the same meal deals as Edmonton, with additional promotions during playoffs. 

Another Gateway casino, Starlight opened its doors in 2018 after rebranding from Palace Casino. Though its exterior is very 1950s, the inside is modern. Vivid and bright, Starlight has a great aesthetic and an alluring ambience. It’s also conveniently located inside the West Edmonton Mall, so you can head up, grab a bite to eat, and unwind after a long shopping day. 

Despite being inside a mall, Starlight is the biggest casino on this list. It has over 700 slots, 16 table games, a Replay Arena, a high-limit Starlight room, and five bars and restaurants spread over an impressive 120,000 square feet of entertainment space. Though it has fewer gaming options than some smaller casinos, the space is bright, airy, and relaxing. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the Replay Arena, it’s an interactive table gaming space exclusive to Albertan casinos. Starlight is one of two casinos in Edmonton that features the Replay Arena, which comes with a huge visual wall, a live DJ, bright lights, and “Dealertainers.” There are 18 individual stations where you can play baccarat, blackjack, roulette, craps, and sic bo. Unlike individual electronic tables, the Replay Arena is a multiplayer experience linked up by large games unfolding on the big wall.

Starlight features some restaurants commonly featured in Gateway casinos, including MATCH, Chow Lucky Noodle Bar and ATLAS Steak + Fish. It also has a very unique restaurant called Halley’s Club. The first of its kind in Western Canada, Halley’s is a speakeasy-style supper club and cabaret theatre hybrid, where you can enjoy dinner and a live show by one of the resident bands and then dance the night away to local DJs.

River Cree is a tribal casino with 62,000 square feet of gaming space spread across two casinos. Despite not being the largest casino in Edmonton, it has the largest number of games and entertainment spaces, more so than Starlight, which has five times as much floor space!

River Cree squeezes two casinos, 1,300+ slots, 40 table games, a poker room, six restaurants, three bars, and 249 hotel rooms into under 63,000 square feet of resort space. Both casinos (one smoke-friendly and one smoke-free) are open 24/7. There’s also a 24,000-square-foot entertainment venue that seats up to 2,400 people. 

Its position on tribal land means River Cree has the authority to allow indoor smoking. There is one casino (aptly named Embers) where smoking is permitted and one that is smoke-free, so whether you’re a lover of slot-side smoking or want to avoid the haze altogether, you’re catered for at River Cree. Just be aware that while smoking cigarettes is permitted, cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco and cigarillos aren’t. 

The resort hosts many promotions and events to entertain guests beyond the gaming floor. There are outdoor playoff watch parties, musicians, night markets, mediums, 50% off food during set hours, a $3.99 breakfast special, and Happy Hours—the list is endless. Moreover, the resort adjoins the Twin Rinks ice skating rink, where you can lace up and join in on public ice skating sessions or watch a River Cree Hockey League match. 

At River Cree Resort, you have plenty of dining options. The Kitchen Restaurant, Italia, Tap 25 Sports Bar, Cha Xpress, and Fatburger all offer tasty and diverse menus. At the same time, Grab & Go offers fast and convenient snacking between sessions. 

The Centre Bar provides everything you need to stay hydrated on the non-smoking casino floor, while Onyx serves up drinks for players in the smoke-friendly Embers casino. The Lobby Coffee Bar serves freshly brewed Starbucks coffee to kickstart your day. 

Century Mile is a joint casino and horse racing track based out at Edmonton International Airport. The casino is something of an add-on to the famous racetrack, but it still packs a punch. There are over 600 slots and VLTs, with bets ranging from a penny to $5 (a higher limit than some of Edmonton’s biggest casinos). Owned and operated by the Century Casinos chain, you can join the exclusive Winners Zone program and enter draws for cash prizes, car giveaways, and more. 

Since Century Mile is primarily a racetrack, live table games are prohibited. However, you can enjoy a great range of electronic table games in the Replay Arena, the immersive multiplayer gaming space exclusive to Alberta. Century Mile is one of only four destinations with a Replay Arena, and you can use the provincial Winners Edge rewards program to claim points on your gameplay and exchange them for discounts and freeplay. 

As far as racing goes, Century Mile offers some of the most diverse horse racing in all of Edmonton. The only grade A one-mile track in Alberta, Century Mile has live thoroughbred and quarter horse races throughout May to September and standardbred harness racing from September onwards. If you visit the racetrack with kids, you can keep them entertained with a free guided tour of the 800-stall barn and learn about the race preparation process. 

There is no on-site accommodation, but Century Mile’s proximity to YEG means there are plenty of nearby airport hotels. It’s just under a half-hour drive from downtown Edmonton, but if you plan a visit before or after a flight, you couldn’t ask for a more convenient location. You’ve also got the RedTail Landing golf course and RAD Torque raceway within a 10-minute drive, allowing for an action-packed airport layover or weekend getaway.