It’s Showtime! Best Casinos for Entertainment, Ranked

Originally Posted On: https://www.casinos.com/us/news/it-s-showtime-best-casinos-for-entertainment-ranked

From Las Vegas casino legends to Atlantic City icons, your trip to a major gambling destination simply wouldn’t be complete without some top-tier entertainment.

Maybe you’ll want to take in a residency – everyone from Adele to Shania Twain to Usher has had a residency in Vegas at some point. Perhaps magic shows are more your style – Penn & Teller, anyone? Oh, and don’t forget absolute staples like Cirque du Soleil, major sporting events and the best comedy under the sun.

Featuring everything from purpose-built arenas for concerts, to long-running stage shows, some casinos offer better entertainment than they do gambling! It would be easy to comb your way through Ticketmaster or other events websites to see what’s on the go, but it’s safe enough to say that some casinos blow the others out of the water when it comes to entertainment.

We decided to make a definitive list of the best casinos for entertainment and there was only one foolproof way to do it: Tripadvisor! We checked reviews for keywords like “show”, “concert”, “entertainment” and “event”, to see which casinos came up top.

We ranked these casinos from across the country:

We were as surprised as you are to find that the Choctaw Casino Resort in Oklahoma came top of the list. That’s right: Oklahoma. A far cry from Vegas, or indeed Atlantic City. With 460 keyword mentions, this casino received a rating of 38.88% on our scale. The most popular keywords here included “concert” and “theatre”.

Not only do acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kansas make appearances, there’s also regular free live music – score! “The Grand Theater is an amazing location for a concert”, said one happy reviewer, while another noted that there was “not a bad seat in the house”.

If Oklahoma isn’t your ideal place for a casino vacation, you might prefer to head to the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. With an impressive rating of 35.29% on our scale, more than 400 people called out the word “show”, while 350+ referred to a “concert”. One person was very impressed with the overall offering, saying “We were there on a Tuesday evening there was a band playing in the casino, a concert in progress and a basketball game being played in the arena”, and another review mentioned that the concert venue is the highlight of the whole Mohegan Sun experience.

In third place, we have Turning Stone Resort Casino which is located in Verona, New York. This one got a respectable score of 33.74%, with 442 keyword mentions, including 122 for “show” and 78 for “entertainment”.

Certainly sounds promising! Concerts, nightlife, tribute shows, craft fairs and holiday celebrations are just a few of the events we came across when we had a quick glance at Turning Stone’s website. A very positive review said, “We came to see a show at the event center. We had probably the “worst” seats available and they were still excellent with a great view of the stage and no obstructions. The show was great as well as the event center staff. We will definitely be coming back again!”

We were starting to notice a distinct lack of Las Vegas casinos on this list, so we were happy to see the property that came in fourth place. But no, it’s not Caesars Palace – home of the famous Colosseum – or the Venetian, which is technically where the Sphere is. No, the highest-ranking Las Vegas casino is in fact Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Summerlin.

With a rating of 31.38%, there were more than 1,500 keyword mentions. Almost 800 people called out the “theatre”, while more than 170 talked about “entertainment”. A lot of reviews called out the range of entertainment options, for example one said “They offer good gaming, also have a Bingo Hall inside the Hotel and a 16 Screen Movie theater! You don’t even have to leave the property if you don’t want to. They also have a big bowling alley there as well”.

Coming in just behind Red Rocks, with 29.24% on the scale was Foxwoods Resort Casino. There were more than 200 mentions of the word “entertainment” and almost 400 of “show” and with everything from premium nightclubs to cocktail tasting events, there are lots of options to choose from. According to one person – who has an over-enthusiasm for exclamation marks! – “Great destination!! Golf is Fantastic!! sooo many things to do, shows to see, bingo, rides, food at the Cedar was unbelievable!! and gambling fun!!”

Of course, not all casinos put a big focus on events. Others try their hardest, but they still don’t seem to hit the mark. So we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t let you know which casinos aren’t that great when it comes to entertainment.

Want to try to have a guess at which casino was right at the bottom of the list? Go on, have a guess! No, it’s no Circus Circus (which placed closer to the middle). If you guessed the Luxor, give yourself a pat on the back.

Now, the Luxor is part of the MGM Group, so while their website might mislead you into thinking that there are all sorts of events on the go (like Bruno Mars and Jellyroll concerts), those are actually happening at other MGM properties.

The Luxor’s rating was a dubious 5.9%, with 3,805 keyword mentions out of more than 64,000 reviews. “Nothing currently added caters to value or customer experience. Even the acts and performances were dated, Blue Man Group and Carrot Top”, said one review. Although to be fair, both of those are Vegas icons.

Second from the bottom was The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, with a score of 6.12%. The Cosmo is at a slight disadvantage here, because it doesn’t have a big arena attached like some of the other Vegas casinos, but you might get lucky enough to catch a show in the 3,200-capacity Chelsea Ballroom.

So, why were Tripadvisor reviewers so unimpressed? Not one person used the word “performance” and only five commented on “live music”, and one person even said “If you’re just walking through all the resorts, I would say you can skip this one, because there’s no fun “Show” to see or anything worth taking pictures of”. We also found a particularly scathing review of the Opium show, calling it out as “NOT entertainment”, but the good news is that it closed in 2023.

The Silverton Casino Lodge in Las Vegas didn’t do very well either, coming in at third from the bottom with a rating of 6.26%.

Only 90 reviews called out any of our keywords and not one person said anything about a “singer”, “comedian”, or “live entertainment”. Nope, not one person. While the reviews generally weren’t bad, one person said “They need more entertainment”. The premier attraction seems to be a mermaid show in a big tank, which might not quite compare to the likes of Cirque du Soleil.

The Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas placed fourth from the bottom, which may not be that much of a surprise, considering that we once heard someone refer to it as “literally a soulless shopping mall” and “the worst casino in Vegas”. But we put our own biases aside for the second and actually looked at what Tripadvisor reviewers had to say.

Out of a huge 38,000 reviews, only 2,500 mentioned our keywords, giving the Aria a score of 6.62%. Most of these were “show”, while only 44 were of a “performance” and 31 of “live entertainment”. One person said the entertainment was good, but they were referring to the TV in the room. Another said “I didn’t see any shows advertised or entertainment options. No bowling alley, arcade, etc. It’s basically gambling, gambling & more gambling”. Let us reiterate – it’s a casino.

Methodology

Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with entertainment to determine the casino with the best entertainment in the USA. We calculated the percentage of mentions in the total Tripadvisor reviews.

Keywords tracked: show, concert, entertainment, band, performance, event, live music, singer, dj, theatre, stage, live entertainment, comedian, magician

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