These Showstopping Canadian Casinos Have the Best Entertainment

Casinos aren’t just about slot machines and card tables anymore. While the thought of a potential jackpot payout, or the thrill of taking a seat at the blackjack table and table games are the main attraction for some people, others are drawn in by the glitz and glamor of a full casino experience. And what’s more glitzy and glam than taking in a show?  

But let’s face it, Canadian casinos aren’t exactly Vegas. It’s unlikely that you’ll come across a residency by someone like Adele or Rod Stewart at the local casino in Kamloops. But nevertheless, local music events, comedy shows, dance troupes and even the occasional international headline act all perform at Canadian casinos.

But where should you go if you want to be entertained by the best in the business? There’s a big difference between a massive country music show in an arena that holds 10,000 people, and some guy who does comedy on his day off standing up for open mic night at the karaoke bar. And it’s safe to say that some Canadian casinos just aren’t geared up to host world-class entertainment. 

To help you out a little, we decided to go on a mission to find the casinos with the best entertainment options in all of Canada. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to visit all of them ourselves, but we headed to Tripadvisor to find out what real people thought. We searched for mentions of particular keywords like “entertainment”, “live music” and “performance” and the more mentions a casino got, the higher it ranked on our very special scale. We’re going to tell you exactly which casinos came top of the list, and which ones leave a lot to be desired.

Here's our final ranking:

Let’s have a round of applause for the casino that came top of the list: Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall. For the first time ever, the casino scored more than 100% on our scale! There were 570 reviews but 728 mentions of our keywords, meaning that some reviews used multiple. The result? A whopping 127.72%! 

“Show” came up over 450 times, while more than 60 people called out the “stage”. Despite the slightly strange name, this is actually Canada’s oldest casino, and one of the highlights of your visit is sure to be the cancan show, featuring Gertie and her Goldrush Girls! 

One review said, “The dancers are amazing...high energy, great costumes, very entertaining. A must see when in Dawson!”, while another said “What a great night of entertainment. We even went back the next night to catch a different show. Highly recommend”.  

Sounds good to us!

Great Eagle Resort and Casino ranked second on our list, with a respectable 73.68%. “Show” and “concert” were the most popular keywords, while people also called out "entertainment" and “stage”. Located in Calgary, this casino boasts almost 1,000 slot machines, hotel rooms with views of the Rocky Mountains and plenty of entertainment including live music. 

One reviewer sounded slightly surprised when they said “The convention centre attached is now hosting some famous acts and we came here for a show, which was really well done. The casino itself was very impressive and reminded me of a little Las Vegas, with slots, poker, etc”. On the downside, a few people called out that getting out of the parking lot after a concert took a little bit too long.

Third on the list, Casino Regina did pretty well with 63.32%. Over 100 people mentioned the word “show” alone, and with a packed events calendar in the casino’s Show Lounge, it’s no surprise at all. According to one review, “No matter when we go to the Casino Show Lounge - they have the best entertainment anywhere. The stars that they bring in are Top of The League for sure”. That sounds like the best possible feedback! 

Casino Rama Resort in Orillia, Ontario came in at fourth place. The casino received an impressive rating of 61.62%, based on more than 460 keyword mentions. “Concert” and “entertainment” were the two most popular words, with almost 300 callouts between them. 

A quick glance at Casino Rama’s website told us that there are tons of upcoming events, including everything from comedy shows, to Christmas musicals, to an Elvis tribute act! “Attended many concerts here and the sound is awesome, not to mention every seat has a great view. Would recommend seeing any show here and the line up is very diverse”, said one review. The relatively small size of the venue and great views of the stage were mentioned often.

We’ll round things off with Club Regent Casino, with a rating of 49.78%. 115 out of 231 reviews mentioned our keywords, with “show”, “entertainment” and “concert” each coming up about 25 times. 

“A lovely venue for a concert. Seating is comfortable and the acoustics are very good-great. So convenient when staying at the attached hotel”, said one review, while another called out that “The casino is lovely. The concert facility is exceptional with comfortable seating and plenty of beverage servers”.

But where there’s good, there has to be bad. And unfortunately, not all Canadian casinos offer great entertainment - or any entertainment at all. We take absolutely no pleasure (nope, none at all), in letting you know which casinos you might skip.

According to our research, the worst of the worst is Casino de Charlevoix in Quebec. This one claims to have a world-class hotel, plus a golf course and lots of gambling options, so why on Earth did only 20 reviews out of 519 use one of our entertainment keywords? With an abysmal rating of 3.85%, not one person said anything about a “concert” or “performance”! 

One review got straight to the point, saying “Casino was packed with seniors. At the time there was no entertainment”. 

Do you hear that? Not limited entertainment, not bad entertainment: no entertainment. 

Shorelines Casino Thousand Islands didn’t fare much better, with only 5.24% and 23 keyword mentions. Absolutely no references to “concert”, “band” or “performance” made us think things must be prettttty bad here. One review said “It would have been nice if they had some weekend entertainment and maybe a better bar area for us to lounge in” and indeed the only people who mentioned being entertained in any way were referring to the slots and table games. 

Casino of the Rockies came third from the bottom, with the lowest absolute number of keyword mentions: only seven. This resulted in a very poor rating of 5.79%. As “entertainment” and “event” were the only keywords called out, we have to assume that this casino doesn’t have anything in the way of shows or concerts. Right?

And indeed, we couldn’t see a huge amount on their website, with the exception of a special day for seniors. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not exactly a Celine Dion residency, is it? One review confirmed our suspicions, saying “This is not a mega casino with entertainment and restaurants.It is just a small casino with slots and table games”. 

Rounding off the Bad List, we have Casino de Mont-Tremblant. This Quebec casino received a dismal rating of 5.90%, which is a bit of a shocker for a casino that quite clearly advertises “Bars & Shows” as being one of their selling points. 

Out of almost 500 reviews, only six people made reference to a show at all! We got some mixed signals when we checked out the Tripadvisor reviews here. While one said, “The lounge musical entertainment was probably the highlight of the visit”, another quite clearly stated “You go there if you really want to gamble and or to try their famous restaurant. I wouldn't recommend it for the entertainment”. Oh well, each to their own. 

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 Canada. 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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