It’s hype. The generally accepted unit of measurement is casino-floor square footage. By that yardstick, Milwaukee’s Potowatomi Bingo Casino – with 780,000 square feet – is nominally America’s biggest. "Gaming positions," or the number of slot machines and seats at table games, is also employed as a metric, but that can also be deceptive. Do tournament-only slots count? What about card rooms that come into play just for large poker events? How much does The Rio’s gaming-position count increase during the World Series of Poker?
According to Tampa Bay Times reporter Caitlin Johnson, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa is now the fourth-largest casino in the U.S. By the numbers: On 400,000-plus square feet of gaming floor, Seminole Tampa has 5,000 slots, 110 table games and 50 poker tables. That’s not anywhere good enough for #1 status.
By contrast, Connecticut’s Foxwoods Resort Casino deploys 7,200 slots, 280 tables, 100 poker tables and 4,000 bingo seats over a 344,000-square foot casino floor. Foxwoods’ main rival, Mohegan Sun, has 6,780 slots, 350 tables and 42 poker tables, on 300,000 square feet of casino flooring. So if the Seminoles want to compare gaming position, both their Mashantucket Pequot (Foxwoods) and Mohican (Mohegan Sun) brethren have them clobbered. Seminole Tampa’s square footage, however, might get it as high as second place, but Potowatomi is still the champ in that category.
