The Gaming Control Board’s designations are a little confusing, especially when it comes to downtown. In fact, some lists of downtown casinos contain more than 19 names; that's because sports books count separately if they’re not owned by the casino itself. Binion’s, for example, is sometimes listed twice, for the main casino and the race and sports book, which is a satellite of Reno's Cal Neva casino.
But never mind that noise. The 19 themselves were hard enough to dig up and without a helpful contact at Gaming Control, we couldn't've answered this question.
Here's the breakdown.
Downtown Las Vegas currently has 16 non-restricted gaming locations that earn more than $1 million per year in casino revenue. The ones you no doubt counted include: Plaza, Las Vegas Club, Main Street Station, California, Golden Gate, Binion’s, Golden Nugget, Four Queens, Fremont, Fitzgeralds, Gold Spike, El Cortez, and Stratosphere (anything north of Sahara Ave. counts as "downtown" as far as the GCB is concerned).
But you might have forgotten about Mermaids and La Bayou, the two high-pressure slot joints on either side of Fremont between First and Second.
And only if you’re an old Vegas hand will you remember the Western, at 899 Fremont, a couple rugged blocks east of El Cortez.
That's 16.
Then there are the non-restricted locations that don’t make $1 million a year and the restricted locations (meaning 15 slots or less).
The name you might recognize among them is the Aztec, a 33-machine joint on the south side of West Baltimore Street, which runs from Las Vegas Boulevard to the Stratosphere parking lot.
There's also the Silver Saddle Saloon, a rough-and-tumble bar that rounds the corner of E. Fremont and E. Charleston, with 32 slots and, last we heard, a couple blackjack tables.
And not only hadn't we even heard of the so-called Downtown Casino, we couldn't find a single mention of it on Google. But apparently, for you Lady Luck freaks, it's a hole-in-the-wall slot closet by Hogs & Heifer's on Third Street between Ogden and Stewart that's looking after Lady Luck's gaming license for now.
