For gamblers—both high-stakes players and people who can barely push a dollar into a slot machine—there’s one destination that comes to mind when you think of casinos. It’s a city famous for its neon, its enormous themed hotels, its successful ad campaign that promises secrecy and blanket forgiveness for whatever happens there, and a reputation for constantly coming up with new things to entertain visitors. That city is Las Vegas. But shockingly, a new study says that, despite all of that, Vegas isn't the number-one casino city in America—so what the heck is?
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In fact, in the list of best casino cities in the U.S. by gaming aggregator SlotMatrix, Las Vegas isn't even in the second or third spot. Somehow, Sin City came in fourth, while a city that few people associate with casinos—Chicago, Illinois—managed to wind up in first place.
Let’s look at how that’s even possible: The study looked at a variety of data, including how many casinos there are per 100,000 residents of the city; how many casinos have connected hotels or restaurants; the number of slot machines, table games and poker tables in each casino; the number of late-night bars open in the city; average hotel price; and the percentage increase of online searches since 2022 for casino-related travel to that city.
After crunching all those variables, Chicago shows up as the clear winner. Okayyy.
To be fair, Chicago does have the highest number of table games and poker tables per casino—159 per casino—and the third highest number of slot machines, at 2,100. Interest in traveling to Chicago for its casinos has increased by 258-percent since 2022, according to an analysis of Google searches. Yet both Detroit and Philadelphia have higher percentage of online interest, with 340 percent and 336 percent, respectively.
In second place is Detroit, Michigan, another destination we don’t necessarily associate with gambling, yet it came out with the most slot machines per casino and the largest increase in travel-related searches. Atlantic City—finally, a city that does have a casino-based reputation—came in third place overall, with the highest number of casinos per 100,000 people.
As for Vegas, well, darn it. The Nevada town does have one of the highest densities of casinos per 100,000 people, but its hotels are expensive (that’s because you can literally pretend you’re in Venice, Paris, Egypt or medieval England while you're there, fantasy elements that cost a pretty penny). However, the priciest hotel night actually is found in Detroit, where an average night costs $304. In comparison, the average hotel cost in Vegas is $210, the fourth highest behind Pittsburgh ($285) and Chicago ($232).
We’re all little unsure of how all the metrics are weighted because scrutinizing the data actually makes it look like Detroit should win out over Chicago—and Atlantic City and Las Vegas should be worlds above those cities. Ah well, whatever happens in Chicago will be immediately shared with your significant other.
Here’s the list of the top 10 casino destinations in the U.S.:
1. Chicago, Illinois
2. Detroit, Michigan
3. Atlantic City, New Jersey
4. Las Vegas, Nevada
5. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
6. Everett, Washington
7. Prior Lake, Minnesota
8. St. Louis, Minnesota
9. Biloxi, Mississippi
10. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania