Casino Hotels

The casino occupies the former French and Quebec pavilions from Expo 67 on Île Notre-Dame, and the site still reads as a piece of world's-fair architecture — angular, glazed, sitting on its own island in the river with the city skyline across the water. Guests are accommodated at the associated hotel a short transfer away, and the property's real strength is what surrounds the gaming floor: several restaurants at different price points, a cabaret room that programmes music and comedy through the year, and event space that fills with conferences as often as anything else. The island setting keeps it distinct from downtown Montreal rather than folded into it.

Built into the escarpment above the Horseshoe Falls, this is a full resort hotel where the view does a great deal of the work — a large share of the guest rooms look directly at the falls, and the public rooms are arranged along the glass to take the same outlook. There are close to four hundred rooms, a spa, a fitness floor, a substantial theatre that brings in touring acts, and a spread of restaurants from buffet through to a fine-dining room on an upper floor. The gaming floor is one component of a building that also functions, quite conventionally, as Niagara's largest conference and entertainment hotel.

River Rock sits on the Fraser River near Vancouver's airport, with a marina, its own show theatre and a hotel wing that is used heavily by people passing through the region rather than staying in the city. The rooms are contemporary and generously sized, the spa and pool are proper facilities rather than token ones, and the dining runs from a large buffet to a well-regarded Chinese restaurant that draws diners from Richmond independently of the casino. Proximity to the airport shapes the whole operation: arrivals at odd hours, a shuttle in constant use, and a front desk that never fully quiets down.

Owned by the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and set in cottage country near Orillia, this is a resort hotel that people drive to for a weekend rather than pass through. The hotel has roughly three hundred rooms and suites, a spa, an indoor pool, and a large entertainment centre that has hosted touring artists for decades and remains the main draw for a good share of guests. Around a dozen food outlets cover everything from a steakhouse to quick counters. The lakes and golf nearby give it a genuinely seasonal rhythm, with summer and holiday weekends busiest by a wide margin.