Delaware Has Three Casinos, No Smoking, No Sales Tax, and a Lottery That Owns Every Slot Machine

Every slot machine in Delaware is, in law, a lottery terminal, and the state keeps 42.5 percent of what it wins. The three casinos that house them are smoke-free, sell everything tax-free, and share a single betting app. How the three differ, and when the drive from Philadelphia is worth it.

Published 2026-11-02.

Every slot machine in Delaware is, in law, a video lottery terminal, and the Delaware Lottery takes 42.5 percent of what it wins before the casino sees a dollar. The three casinos that house the machines exist because they were racetracks in 1993, which is the year the statute names, and no fourth can open without the legislature rewriting that line.

That is a stranger arrangement than it sounds, and it shapes everything a visitor notices: why the floors are smoke-free, why there is one sportsbook app instead of ten, why two of the three have no hotel, and why the biggest of them is a thoroughbred track twelve minutes off I-95 that most Philadelphians have driven past without stopping.

Delaware's casinos are licensed as video lottery agents under Title 29 of the state code. The law confines slot machines and table games to a racetrack property that held a horse or harness meet in 1993, caps each at 2,500 machines plus up to 1,500 more on the Lottery Director's say-so, and bars the machines from any hotel or overnight building, which is why Bally's Dover's 500 rooms sit next to the casino rather than above it.

The money splits by statute. The state keeps 42.5 percent of slot win, horse purses take 9.6 percent at the thoroughbred track and 11.35 percent at the harness tracks, and the casino keeps the rest. Tables are gentler, 15.5 percent to the state and 4.5 percent to purses. Players are guaranteed a return of at least 87 percent on the machines, in law.

The timeline matters because Delaware was early at almost everything. Slots arrived at the three tracks in 1995 and 1996. Parlay-card sports betting started in September 2009, which for nine years made these the only legal sportsbooks on the East Coast. Table games came in May 2010, online casino play in November 2013, when Delaware became the first state to launch it, and single-game sports betting on June 5, 2018, weeks after the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban. The Lottery's current online platform launched at the end of December 2023 with Rush Street's BetRivers as the sole provider; you pick one of the three casinos when you sign up, and that casino gets credit for your play.

Being early did not make it big. Statewide the three casinos won $466 million from slots and tables in calendar 2025 and $34.4 million in the Lottery's September 2026 period, down 5.4 percent on the year. Online casino play added $136 million in the fiscal year to June 2026. Harrah's Philadelphia and Parx to the north, Maryland Live! and Hollywood Perryville to the south, and Atlantic City to the east have surrounded a state that once had this corner of the map to itself.

Delaware Park has raced thoroughbreds since 1937 in Stanton, off exit 4B of I-95, and its casino is the largest in the state on every line of the Lottery's reports: 2,013 machines in September 2026, 44 tables, the only 10 poker tables in Delaware, $15.2 million in combined win for the month and $198 million for calendar 2025. Clairvest, a Toronto private equity firm, and Rubico Gaming bought it from the Rickman family in late 2021, and the new owners have spent since: a $10 million renovation of the table pits and lounge in 2023, a 10,000 square foot outdoor gaming terrace with 250-plus machines that opened in October 2025 with heaters and fans, and close to a thousand slot installs or conversions in the twelve months to May 2026, by the casino's own count.

The terrace is the detail that explains the machine count jumping from about 1,880 to 2,000 last fall. It is also the only place on the property a smoker can play, because Delaware's indoor law has no casino exemption.

The poker room is upstairs on the track side, open 10am to 3am daily with weekly tournaments and high-hand days; ten tables is not a destination room, but it is the only live poker in the state. The sportsbook is on the second floor on the casino side, open until 9pm, with parlay cards and self-service terminals on race days. Tables have run 24 hours since late 2024. The card is the Player Rewards Club, with tiers from Silver through Platinum at 2,500 points and an invitation-only President's Club. Valet is $4.

Racing is the real second act. The 2026 meet ran May 13 to October 17, 75 days, Wednesday to Saturday for most of the summer, with the $500,000 Delaware Handicap on September 26. There is no hotel on the property; the house hotel is a Residence Inn nearby with a casino rate.

From Center City Philadelphia the track's own directions say about 45 minutes. Our estimates put Harrah's Philadelphia in Chester 24 miles away, Hollywood Perryville in Maryland 27, Parx 58 and Atlantic City 75, which is the real frame for the place: the nearest smoke-free casino with live tables and poker for anyone in Wilmington or Newark.

Bally's Dover is the former Dover Downs, bought by Twin River Worldwide Holdings in March 2019 and renamed when Twin River became Bally's. Its real estate went to Gaming and Leisure Properties in 2021 for $144 million and Bally's leases it back. The hotel is the thing: 500 rooms, the largest hotel in Delaware, with the Rollins Center showroom and a spa, built in 2007 when Dover Downs was the state's biggest casino. It no longer is. The Lottery counted 1,904 machines in September 2026, down from 2,154 a year earlier, with the drop coming in April 2026 and no public explanation, and 29 tables with no poker. Win for the month was $10.7 million, down 10 percent; calendar 2025 was $156 million.

The harness track still races in winter, and the whole complex sits inside Dover Motor Speedway's one-mile concrete oval, which in 2026 hosted the NASCAR All-Star Race on May 17 and in 2027 gets a Cup Series points race on May 16. Those are the weekends the 500 rooms sell out. Bally's opened an outdoor smoking patio with machines in October 2024, the same workaround Delaware Park used a year later. The card is Bally Rewards, which also works at Bally's Atlantic City and the company's other casinos; its online casino in Delaware runs on the BetRivers platform under the Bally's name.

Harrington Raceway & Casino is twenty miles further down US 13, run by Harrington Raceway Inc. on the Delaware State Fairgrounds. It opened as Midway Slots in 1996, added tables in 2010, and in September 2026 ran 1,321 machines and 23 tables for $8.4 million in win. The casino is open 24 hours Friday and Saturday and 8am to 4am the rest of the week, there is no hotel on site, the Gold Room runs weekend shows, and the harness meet runs April to October on Monday to Wednesday evenings with a break for the fair in late July. One number stands out: Harrington's share of Delaware's online casino revenue, $39.4 million in fiscal 2026, was larger than Dover's, which says more about where its players live than about the building. It is about 35 miles from Rehoboth Beach, and in summer that is its reason to exist.

Delaware's Clean Indoor Air Act has covered casinos since November 2002 with no indoor exemption, which puts the state alongside Maryland and Massachusetts and apart from New Jersey, where the Smoke-Free Air Act exempts casino floors, and Pennsylvania, where a casino may designate up to half its floor for smoking. For a non-smoker coming from either direction that alone is a reason to stop; our smoke-free list has the national map.

Delaware has no sales tax. That is the whole sentence, and the casinos lean on it.

The one-app rule is the part that surprises visitors. BetRivers is the only legal online sportsbook and online casino in the state, under a Lottery contract awarded in 2023; a 2024 bill to allow two more mobile operators per casino died at the end of that session, opposed by Rush Street, the state's finance department and the horse industry. In July 2026 the Lottery added self-service sports kiosks at 89 retailers plus the three casinos, with odds supplied by Caesars Sportsbook. So you can bet on the Eagles from a liquor store in Dover, but you cannot use a DraftKings or FanDuel account anywhere in the state, and the Lottery takes no bets on Delaware's college teams.

The usual advice is that Delaware's casinos are small, old racinos and that anyone serious should keep driving to Atlantic City or to Maryland Live!. Half of that is right. Harrington and Dover are regional casinos, and nobody should plan a weekend around either unless the speedway or the beach is the reason.

Delaware Park is the exception, and the standard advice undersells it for a specific person: the non-smoker who lives in Wilmington, Newark or the western Philadelphia suburbs and plays tables or poker. Parx is smoke-free too but it is an hour further for them; Harrah's Philadelphia and the Atlantic City floors are not smoke-free at all. Delaware Park has 44 live tables open 24 hours, the only poker in the state, a terrace for the smokers in your party, and racing all summer. It has no hotel, no resort fee because of it, and $4 valet.

What Delaware cannot offer is choice. Three casinos, one app, one set of rules. If your trip is about options, Atlantic City's nine are 75 miles east. If it is about a quiet, smoke-free afternoon of blackjack on the way between Philadelphia and Baltimore, the exit is 4B. The full list is on Delaware casinos.

Topics

• delaware
• delaware-park
• dover
• mid-atlantic
• smoke-free

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