America’s Most Christmassy Casinos, Ranked

_{Festive casino décor lights up the holiday season as Tropicana in Atlantic City to deliver the ultimate Christmas experience. (Associated Press)}

Christmas is for cozying up on the sofa with a big mug of hot cocoa and a festive movie, arguing with your extended family about the state of the world and suffering through turkey for the second time in about a month. Or… is it? Could Christmas be a little different this year? Rocking around the slot machine, if you get our drift? 

There certainly are casinos that are fully geared up for the winter break – think Christmas trees on steroids, huge holiday displays like the Bellagio Conservatory in Las Vegas and even festive menus featuring fancy cocktails and unique takes on traditional holiday food. And of course, you might just be in for some festive jackpots to help you really get into the holiday spirit.

But we’ve been to enough casinos to know that while some are really fun and festive over the holidays, others might be closed or just downright depressing and you’re going to have a terrible time. 

Don’t worry too much yet; we’re going to tell you exactly which casinos to avoid over Christmas. 

We wanted to check out more than 50 casinos across the US and our team isn’t quite big enough to do that in person, so we headed to Tripadvisor to see what real reviewers said about each casino. Based on mentions of certain keywords like “Christmas,” “Santa Claus,” “Christmas decorations,” and “festive,” we were able to rank each casino on a scale from the casinos that go all in on the Christmas spirit to the ones that don’t exactly deck the halls with festive cheer. 

Here is our final ranking: 

So, let’s step right into Christmas – the casino that topped the list was Tropicana Atlantic City, with 6.13% on the scale. Our keywords were mentioned an impressive 426 times, with “Christmas” coming up 101 times and “holidays” 114. 

The casino advertises “family fun” as one of their main selling points and with shows, shopping and fun activities like an escape room, it’s easy to see why this might be a great place to spend a few days over the festive season. According to one review, “The Christmas decor was awesome. The staff at Tropicana was very friendly. We really felt the spirit of the Holiday!!! We will be coming back next Christmas!!!” 

And if we’re able to read between all those exclamation marks, it seems very positive. Lots of reviews also called out the beautiful Christmas tree, and indeed one person went as far as to say, “I am not impressed with your hotel, your service or anything, but I think I am impressed with how your decorations look for Christmas.” 

It might surprise you a little to find out that the next casino on the list isn’t a Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino resort, but rather MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. The rating here was almost as high as the Tropicana, coming in at 6.12%. 

“Holidays” was the most common keyword here, making up almost half of the mentions. MGM National Harbor boasts luxurious facilities, including a spa, pools (although maybe not the best idea in winter) and live shows, including Christmassy productions. One review said, “The lobby area outside the casino is a Christmas spectacular. There was an intermittent light show followed by the sound of a ‘choo-choo’ train throughout the area. It was simply a delight for the young and young at heart.” Aww, that has us feeling all warm and fuzzy inside! 

In third place, we have the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota, with a rating of 6.11%, although this one only had a total of 606 reviews, with 37 keyword mentions. 

Minnesota is a great place to go if you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, which is already one thing this location has going for it. Throw in some festive musical events and even a New Year’s Eve party and you can’t really go wrong. 

Everyone who stayed around Christmas time had good things to say, from singing the praises of the Celtic Women Christmas show to shouting out the staff with comments like “The lady who took my calls to book our Christmas weekend was a hoot! She went above and beyond to find us 3 suites right next to each other.” The only downside seemed to be bad weather making travel a little tricky. 

_{In Minnesota, the winter charm extends from casinos to Christmas-lit storefronts, making every corner feel holiday-ready. (Image: Edgar Espe)}

Fourth place was Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, with 5.36% on the scale. Sure, Mississippi might not necessarily be the best place for a snowy Christmas, but wintery weather is possible in December, so a casino like this might feel quite cozy. Strangely enough, not one person called out the word “Christmas,” but 17 mentioned “Xmas.” “December” also came up more than 80 times, so we were interested to explore the reviews. 

One review said, “The room was nice, the view was nice and the Xmas decor in the lobby was FANTASTIC but so many people everywhere. 😩” That little emoji does a lot of heavy lifting – we can feel the struggle. 

Another reviewer also called out the decorations, saying, “Casino has a good variety of slots and table games. The hotel is perfectly clean and seasonally decorated as usual. The Christmas decorations in December are a sight to see!”

Mount Airy Casino Resort in Pennsylvania also got a pretty good rating of 4.8%. “Christmas” came up 31 times, “holidays” 34 and “winter” was mentioned 40 times. Mount Airy Casino boasts a selection of over 1,700 slots plus 70 tables, plus lots of dining options, including a buffet. There’s even a golf course, if you’re feeling brave enough to step outside in winter in PA. 

One happy reviewer said, “My family and I had a wonderful time. An excellent place to spend a Christmas vacation. We look forward to returning soon. Maybe next time I'll hit the jackpot lol.” Lol, imagine that. One person mentioned that the spa was closed over Christmas and that there weren’t a lot of activities, but that just means there’s more time to spend exploring the games and trying for that jackpot!

This list wouldn’t be complete without a Las Vegas casino and the highest-ranking one was, as you might expect, The Venetian. We’ve never been there around Christmas, but we can just imagine an over-the-top, gigantic Christmas tree somewhere in the Grand Canal Shoppes. While the rating was only 4.77%, there were an impressive 1,720 keyword mentions, including 287 of “Christmas” and 799 of “holidays.” 

One person was thrilled with their experience, saying, “We visited Las Vegas during the rodeo and Cowboy Christmas this year and stayed at the Venetian. The hotel was beautifully decorated, the staff outstanding and the casino a lot of fun. Totally enjoyed our getaway!” Cowboy Christmas? Count us in!

So, now that you know exactly which casinos to visit this Christmas, we need to move on to the ones that channel a bit too much of Ebenezer Scrooge’s energy. On the positive side, we were happy to see that none of the casinos got zero, but there were a few that scored seriously badly.

The very bottom of the bottom was Harrah's New Orleans Casino, with a very sad little rating of 0.47% on the scale. There were only two keyword mentions out of the 424 reviews – one for “holidays” and one for “New Year’s Eve.” Harrah's offers everything you could want in a good casino, including a huge gaming space complete with a poker room, as well as shows and restaurants. 

_{New Orleans keeps the festivities alive as the Phunny Phorty Phellows mark Twelfth Night, turning the Uptown streetcar into a rolling celebration of Mardi Gras tradition. (Tom Pumphret/Alamy Live News)}

So we’re a little baffled about why they don’t seem to celebrate Christmas! We took a look at the reviews and found one that said, “No holiday decorations. No Diamond/Seven Star Club. No buffet. No room service but for brief dinner availability.” Sounds like a place to skip!

Las Vegas’s very own Excalibur Hotel & Casino came second from the bottom with 0.84%, but at least there were 248 keyword mentions! Even if some of them weren’t the most positive. As the Excalibur is about as family-friendly as you can get in Vegas (while avoiding Circus Circus, of course), we would have thought the casino would be at least a little bit Christmassy. One review said, “But instead, it was horrible. And I will never stay here again.” 

Another bemoaned the lack of entertainment, saying, “From Christmas week into New Year’s, there was no activity; there was a lounge where there was music on the Sunday night I checked in. Unfortunately, it was dark and silent during the week.”  

Horseshoe Casino Baltimore didn’t do very well either, but at least the rating was higher than 1%. With 1.13% on our scale, there were 248 keyword mentions across more than 29,000 reviews. Not one person called out “Christmas lights” or “Christmas deal,” though, which was a bit disheartening. 

While some of the reviews were actually quite positive, some people weren’t too happy with the decorations. One review said, “I'm a little disappointed in the Christmas décor; it just looks like something was just thrown up,” while another, simply entitled “Bah Humbug,” mentioned, “It is Christmas time and they did not have 1 Christmas decoration!” To be fair to the casino, they did reply to this unhappy reviewer, saying that the decorations went up a little late that year. 

A little lower down the naughty list at fourth from the bottom, we have Harrah's Council Bluffs in Iowa. With a rating of 1.56%, only 48 reviews out of more than 3,000 called out one of our festive keywords. Unfortunately, no one actually used the word “festive.” Or “Christmas lights.” Or even “Christmas decorations.” This doesn’t bode well, does it? 

One person was generally happy with their stay but not so much with the service, saying, “We did stay on Christmas Day, so I understand they were probably short-staffed, but we saw our waitress one time.” Another referred to it as a “Midwest, snowy casino,” which, in our opinion, actually sounds like a pretty good place to spend the holidays.

Methodology 

Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with Christmas to determine the most Christmassy casino in the US. We calculated the percentage of mentions in the total Tripadvisor reviews.

Keywords tracked: Christmas, Xmas, December, festive, holidays, NYE, New Year's Eve, winter break, winter getaway, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, December trip, winter, Christmas deal, Xmas deals, Santa Claus 

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