Ohio Has Eleven Places to Gamble and Four Casinos. The Other Seven Are Racetracks Running Lottery Machines.
MGM Northfield Park has the MGM name on the sign and not one live blackjack dealer inside. In Ohio that is the law, not a business decision, and it applies to seven of the state's eleven gambling venues.
MGM Northfield Park, fourteen miles south of downtown Cleveland, has the MGM name on the sign and earns MGM Rewards on every spin. It does not have a single live blackjack dealer. Legally it is not a casino. It is a harness racing track that runs Ohio Lottery machines, and six other tracks in the state work exactly the same way.That split, four casinos and seven racinos, explains most of what confuses people about gambling in Ohio. The two kinds of building look similar from the parking lot. They were created by different laws, they are taxed differently, and what you can play inside them is different.
Two laws, two kinds of building
The casinos came first on paper. In November 2009 Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing exactly four casinos, one each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo. It had taken several failed ballot measures to get there, and the version that passed was specific enough to tie each license to a particular piece of land. When the Columbus casino needed to move from the Arena District to the west side, that took a second statewide vote, in 2010.
The amendment also fixed the tax: 33% of gross casino revenue, written into the constitution itself. All four opened in 2012 and 2013, and today they are JACK Cleveland downtown, Hard Rock Cincinnati, Hollywood Casino Columbus and Hollywood Casino Toledo.
The racinos came through a side door. In 2011 the state allowed its seven horse racing tracks to install video lottery terminals, run under the authority of the Ohio Lottery. A lottery terminal is a lottery game in law, even when it plays like a slot machine, so the tracks never needed the constitutional amendment. The money splits differently too: the Lottery keeps 33.5% of what the terminals win and the track keeps 66.5% as its commission.
Several tracks took the chance to relocate. Racing licenses moved from Columbus to the Youngstown area and from Toledo to Dayton, which is why there is now a Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley and a Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway.
What the racino cannot give you
Live dealers. That is the whole list, and for some players it is everything.
A racino can offer video slots, video poker and electronic table games, where a machine deals the blackjack hand or spins the roulette wheel. It cannot put a person behind a table. No live craps, no live blackjack, and no poker room, because a poker game needs a dealer. All four casinos have all of those.
Sports betting blurs the line a little. Ohio has taken legal sports bets since January 1, 2023, and our listings show it at all four casinos and at two of the racinos, Miami Valley Gaming and Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs.
Distance from each city
Straight-line miles from each city center, from our own casino data. Road miles run longer.
| City | Nearest casino (live dealers) | Nearest racinos |
|---|---|---|
| Cleveland | JACK Cleveland, downtown | JACK Thistledown 9 mi, MGM Northfield Park 14 mi |
| Akron | JACK Cleveland 30 mi | MGM Northfield Park 18 mi, JACK Thistledown 24 mi |
| Columbus | Hollywood Columbus 8 mi | Scioto Downs 8 mi |
| Cincinnati | Hard Rock Cincinnati, downtown | Belterra Park 4 mi |
| Dayton | Hard Rock Cincinnati 48 mi | Hollywood Dayton 4 mi, Miami Valley Gaming 23 mi |
| Toledo | Hollywood Toledo 4 mi | none in Ohio nearby |
Two cities stand out. Cincinnati has an easy escape across the state line: Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg in Indiana is 18 miles from downtown, with live tables and the same PENN Play card as the two Hollywood casinos in Ohio. Toledo has the opposite problem. Its only local option is Hollywood Toledo, and the next nearest casinos are in Detroit and Windsor, both a little over 50 miles away. Our casinos near Toledo page has the full list.
Where the usual advice is wrong
The usual advice about Ohio racinos is to skip them: slot barns at old racetracks, drive to a real casino instead. For a table player that is correct, and there is no argument about it.
For a slot or video poker player it is backwards, because the racinos are where most of Ohio's big loyalty programs actually live. Scioto Downs is the only place in the state that earns Caesars Rewards. MGM Northfield Park is the only MGM property in Ohio, and Belterra Park in Cincinnati is the only Boyd one.
So a Columbus player who holds Caesars status, and wants tier credits that count in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, is better served eight miles south at Scioto Downs than at the Hollywood casino. The machines are comparable. The card is not. The same logic holds for an MGM member in Cleveland who would otherwise play downtown at JACK. Our rewards program guide covers what each of those cards is worth outside Ohio.
The racinos do have one real drawback beyond the missing dealers. They are mostly on the edges of their cities, next to highways, with little around them. Nobody books a weekend at a racino, and that is not what they are for.
Dayton is the odd city out: two racinos within 23 miles, and the nearest live blackjack dealer 48 miles away in Cincinnati.
Topics
- ohio
- racinos
- cleveland
- cincinnati
- columbus