That's a difficult question to answer definitively and the best thing to do is to shop around, since there are a number of choices.
From our investigations (we've answered questions similar to this a couple of times in the past), there's one place that's always competitive and likely to tie with or beat the best casino cage rate on currency exchange, and that's the Foreign Money Exchange located at 101 Convention Center Dr. (near the Greek Isles). It's been in business for thirty years and, like the casinos, charges no fees. When we called, they were offering $1.55 for the UK pound (£) and 92.75 cents for the Canadian dollar; from the handful of casino cages we called at random, we found that both rates beat most of those offered by the casinos the same day, although the former was trumped by the El Cortez, which was offering $1.57 to the pound. You can see the rest of our findings in the table below.
Another option is American Express Travel Services, located in the Fashion Show Mall. They're open until 9 p.m. on weekdays (the Foreign Money Exchange closes at 4 p.m.), 8 p.m. on Saturday, and 6 p.m. Sunday, so there's some added convenience hours-wise. However, there's a fee, which varies from $5 if you have an AmEx card to $7 if you don't. When we called on the same day, their rate was 89 cents for the Candian dollar (better than all of the casinos, with the exception of Bellagio) and $1.57 to the pound (again, a competitive rate). How significant the fee is depends on how much currency you're exchanging, but unless they're offering a significantly better rate than a fee-less option and you're changing a lot of money, you're likely to get a better deal elsewhere.
There's also a Travelex currency exchange booth at McCarran Airport, Terminal 2 (the international terminal) and is accessible to those without tickets to travel. When we called, their rate varied between 1.43 and 1.52 dollars to the pound (depending on how much was being exchanged -- you get a better rate for bigger transactions) and 87-92 cents to Candaian dollar. Not only were better rates available from the casinos, but Travelex also charges an exchange fee at a flat rate of $5.95 for sums less than $500 or 1% of the transaction value thereafter.
Some of the check-cashing joints around town also exchange foreign currency, but we wouldn't recommend going this route, since the last one we checked with took 10% of the total money cashed as their fee. Ouch.
Some casinos, mostly those downtown and in the neighborhoods, only exchange Canadian dollars, while others we've spoken with, mostly on or nearby the Strip, accept a range of foreign currencies, including not only Canadian dollars, pounds, and euros, but Swiss francs, Australian, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore dollars, Japanese yen, Danish krone, Swedish krona, and Thai baht.
As an indication of how much rates can vary from casino to casino and why it's good to shop around, here are the dollar exchange rates we were quoted for pounds and Canadian dollars at various casino cages on the day of our survey:
| Casino | £ | CAD |
| Bellagio | 1.53 | 91 |
| El Cortez | 1.57 | 86 |
| Orleans | 1.52 | 88 |
| Palms | 1.50 | 86 |
