Yes, it has been answered, but, as far as square footage is concerned, not since November 2005 and, as we all know, a single day can make a world of difference in Las Vegas, let alone the better part of three years.
Back then, the MGM Grand had the largest casino floor, at 171,500 square feet. As we noted at the time, it was tricky pinning down these figures, since the casinos were often unsure themselves when we spoke with them and the gaming floor is always a movable feast, with poker rooms coming and going, slots moving around, and so on.
As a case in point, this time around we compared the information on the properties' own Web sites with the official stats on the Nevada Gaming Control Board's site and found that there were sizable discrepancies when it came to square footage, although agreement on the rankings. Since the GCB's most up-to-date available listings still included the Stardust, we decided to trust the casinos themselves on this one:
As far as the top three Strip properties are concerned, here's what we got:
MGM Grand -- Over 170,000 square feet of gaming space Mandalay Bay -- 135,000 square feet Caesars Palace -- 129,000 square feet
At 137,000 square feet of gaming space, the Orleans is the largest off-Strip casino (and the second-largest, period), while Binion's is the leader downtown with 80,000 square feet.
Again, these statistics may be somewhat misleading, however. For example, a call to the Golden Nugget to verify their post-expansion casino area revealed that, while they can boast only 40,000-or-so square feet of official gambling space, it's all pretty much filled with gaming options (including 1,370 slot machines), while some areas of Binion's casino floor are admittedly somewhat devoid of tables and machines (which total only 860). Hence, in some instances the statistics quoted above may reflect the total area of casino carpet, as opposed to the actual square footage of active gambling space.
In contrast, the number of slots per property tends to be more accurately tallied, since it's a requirement of the GCB and is updated every quarter. According to their July, 2008 figures, the MGM Grand still has the most, with a total of 2,540 (down a mere six machines since the last time we checked, which was in August of this year). The number two and three spots remain occupied by Bellagio (2,420, down from 2,440) and Bally's (2,322, formerly 2,350).
