Hollywood Has the Guitar. Tampa Has Twice the Slots, Half the Resort Fee and, From November 19, a Smoke-Free Floor.
Same tribe, same Unity card, same compact. One is a 1,271-room resort with a 450-foot guitar and a 7,000-seat arena; the other is the bigger casino by every count and is spending the autumn of 2026 turning its main floor smoke-free while a 1,500-seat concert hall stands in as a casino.
Published 2026-11-02.
On a Friday in late September the stretch of Seminole Hard Rock Tampa's casino floor from the Elvis piano to the Cipresso restaurant went smoke-free, along with the hotel lobby and the L Bar. The casino's own page sets the grand opening of the finished smoke-free floor for Thursday, November 19, and until then the 1,500-seat Hard Rock Event Center is a temporary casino with 682 slot machines and 34 tables moved over from the main floor. November's concerts have been sent to other venues. When the work is done, smoking at Tampa will be confined to the pool deck and the valet area.
Across the state in Hollywood, the Seminole Tribe's other Hard Rock still allows smoking across most of its floor, with a non-smoking slot room by the Winners Way garage and a non-smoking section of the high-limit room. The two casinos share an owner, a card and a compact, and almost nothing else that matters to a trip.
Gambling first: Tampa. More than twice the slots, a 44-table poker room that is always smoke-free, 24-hour tables, a $25 resort fee, free parking and a floor that will be smoke-free from November 19. A weekend first: Hollywood. The 638-room Guitar Hotel, three towers and 1,271 rooms, 18 acres of pools, a 7,000-seat Hard Rock Live, the DAER club complex and the Fort Lauderdale airport five miles away, for a $45 resort fee. Both are 21 to gamble and 18 for poker. Through late November, Tampa's floor is a construction site with a concert hall standing in for it; after that, the gambling argument for Tampa gets stronger.
Same tribe, same card, same compact
Both resorts date from 2004 and both belong to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which also owns Hard Rock International. Since the tribe retired the Seminole Wild Card on September 27, 2022, both run on Unity by Hard Rock, the program that also covers Hard Rock Atlantic City and the company's other casinos. Unity's tiers are Star, Legend at 4,000 tier credits, Icon at 15,000 and an invitation-only X; credits count from January through December and status runs from March 1 for fourteen months. Points earned at either Florida casino spend at the other, and at both the resort fee is waived for Icon and X and valet is free for X.
The gaming itself runs under the compact the tribe and the state signed on April 23, 2021, which runs to July 31, 2051, guarantees Florida at least $2.5 billion over its first five years, and added craps, roulette and sports betting to the tribe's menu. A pari-mutuel operator challenged it all the way up, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case on June 17, 2024. Hard Rock Bet has taken bets statewide since December 7, 2023, and both casinos have retail books with eight windows each. Our Florida tribal casino guide covers the tribe's five other casinos; this post is about choosing between the two big ones.
The casino floors
Tampa publishes 245,000 square feet of gaming and, on its smoke-free page, 6,185 slot machines property-wide; an older slots page still says nearly 5,000. Either number is more than double Hollywood, which lists more than 2,500 slots on its web pages and 2,800 in its sales brochure, on a floor the brochure puts at 150,000 square feet and the website at three acres. Tampa lists more than 170 table games with 24-hour live action; Hollywood lists nearly 200, including ten craps and twenty roulette tables, which may be the one category where Hollywood has more.
Poker is nearly even and differently run. Tampa's Draper Room has 44 tables, runs 24 hours and is always smoke-free; Hollywood's new room has 45 tables and is the home of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, the Rock 'N' Roll Poker Open in November and the Lucky Hearts Poker Open, the series that give it a national reputation. Tampa ran a Poker Classic with $600,000 in guarantees in April and May 2025 and had no 2026 series listed when we checked. For tournaments, Hollywood; for a cash game at 4 a.m. without smoke drifting over the rail, Tampa.
High limits favor Tampa too, on paper: a 13,000-square-foot high-limit slot room with more than 200 machines open 24 hours, plus a 96-machine VIP room for Icon and X members. Hollywood's high-limit slot room has 256 machines with bets up to $4,880 and a non-smoking section.
| Hollywood | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Slots (property pages) | 2,500 to 2,800 | 6,185 property-wide |
| Table games | nearly 200 | more than 170 |
| Poker tables | 45 | 44, smoke-free |
| Sportsbook | 40 kiosks, 8 windows | 26 kiosks, 8 windows |
| Resort fee | $45 a day | $25 plus tax a day |
| Smoking on main floor | yes, with non-smoking rooms | ends November 19 |
The hotels
Hollywood is three hotels. The Guitar Hotel, 34 stories and 450 feet, opened in October 2019 with 638 rooms; the seven-story Oasis Tower has 168 rooms, some with swim-up access; the original twelve-story Hard Rock Hotel has 465. That is 1,271 rooms, the resort fee is $45 a day, self-parking is free in three garages off State Road 7, and valet is $30, $35 overnight and $40 on Hard Rock Live nights. The brochure describes 18 acres of water across six pools, a 13.5-acre pool complex at the Guitar Hotel and a 4.5-acre lagoon with a 182-foot slide at the original hotel; the website sells cabanas in a private lagoon area it calls Bora Bora. The Rock Spa is 42,000 square feet with 21 treatment rooms. Hollywood does not publish a minimum check-in age.
Tampa is two towers. The East Tower, opened in 2019, is 17 stories and 550 rooms and suites by the hotel's own page; the West Tower is the original. The property does not publish a combined total, and we are not going to add numbers it has not. The resort fee is $25 plus tax for stays booked since May 1, 2024, self-parking is free around the clock in four garages and a surface lot, and valet is $30 for under twelve hours, $35 over, $50 on event nights. There are three pools with 19 cabanas, and the Rock Spa is 26,000 square feet with 13 treatment rooms. Reservations for guests under 21 are not honored, and the page calls the hotel AAA Four Diamond.
If the room is the point, Hollywood wins on every count except price. If the room is where you sleep between sessions, Tampa's $20 cheaper fee and free garages are the practical answer, and resort fees are the line most people forget to add up.
Shows, clubs and dinner
Hollywood's Hard Rock Live holds 7,000 and opened with the Guitar Hotel in October 2019; it books arena acts. DAER is a three-level club with a nightclub, a dayclub and a rooftop, and the resort counts twenty bars and lounges. The restaurant list runs from Council Oak and Kuro through Abiaka, Marky's Caviar Lounge, Bae Korean Grill and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Tampa's Hard Rock Event Center seats 1,500 and, for now, deals cards. The November 2026 shows were relocated, O.A.R. to BayCare Sound and Sting to Hard Rock Live Orlando, because the hall is a casino until the renovation ends. Dining is Council Oak, The Rez Grill, Cipresso, Jubao Palace Noodle Bar, Rock 'N Raw, Sugar Factory and the Hard Rock Cafe, with Tempo Daylife at the pool. Tampa is a casino with restaurants; Hollywood is an entertainment district with a casino in it. Neither description is an insult.
Getting there
Hollywood is 5 road miles from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, about twelve minutes via Griffin Road and State Road 7, and 28 miles from Miami International; the hotel's page says thirty minutes from Miami. The resort runs paid Hard Rock Express coaches from Boca Raton, Sunny Isles, Weston, Kendall, Doral and Palm Beach at $20 to $45, but none from either airport. Tampa is 13.5 road miles from Tampa International via I-275 and I-4, about 26 minutes, and 80 miles from Orlando on I-4. Tampa offers no shuttle of its own; the FAQ says the concierge will arrange a ride and three partner hotels run their own. Our Miami, Tampa and Orlando pages have the rest of each market, including the pari-mutuel card rooms that are poker without a casino.
Where the usual advice is wrong
The usual advice is that Hollywood is the flagship and Tampa is the branch. The branding says so, the Guitar says so, and every list of the most photographed casinos in America says so. For a gambler it is backwards. Tampa has the bigger floor by a wide margin, the busier tables, the only always-smoke-free poker room in the pair, the cheaper fee and, from November 19, a main floor you can breathe on. Hollywood's sales brochure lists non-smoking gaming among its amenities; its website describes a non-smoking slot room and a non-smoking section of the high-limit room, which is what that amenity amounts to.
The advice is right about one thing, and it is the thing most people are actually buying: a weekend. The Guitar Hotel, the lagoon, the arena and the club are a resort you could spend three days in without entering the casino, and Tampa has nothing like them. If you are flying to South Florida for a show and a pool, you are not choosing; you are going to Hollywood.
The honest version of the choice is to time Tampa. Through late November its floor is split between a renovation and a concert hall, which is not when to see it. From the grand opening on, it is the better casino, and Hollywood is the better hotel, and the Unity card means the tier credits do not care which one you picked.
Florida's dedicated problem gambling line is 1-833-PLAYWISE (1-833-752-9947), which both casinos print in their footers; the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling's 888-ADMIT-IT line is still answered, and 1-800-GAMBLER works anywhere.
Topics
- florida
- hard-rock
- seminole
- tampa
- hollywood
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