Five of the Best Casinos in the World to Play Craps
Head to any Las Vegas casino and listen out for the cheering and exciting shouting. Follow those happy, joyous sounds to their source, and you can bet your bottom dollar that you will find yourself at the venue's craps table. There is no game that can hold a candle to craps when it comes to groups of people, often strangers, having fun and enjoying themselves.
Craps has been around since the 18th century, stemming from the English variation of the dice game hazard. The game's popularity in the United States exploded during World War II, partly because the war brought young American men of all social classes together in the military. The street version of craps became the game of choice for many Americans serving in the army, leading craps to become the dominant casino game in Las Vegas after the war.
European casinos began offering craps during the 1960s, with the game becoming prevalent in online casinos from 2004 onward. Although millions of people play craps with bet Vegas online sites, the game is best enjoyed in a live setting. Here are five iconic casinos where every dice-loving gambler should play craps at least once in their lifetime.
Bellagio, Las Vegas
The Bellagio is one of the most iconic casinos not only in Las Vegas but globally. Bellagio opened for business on October 15, 1998, at 3600 South Las Vegas Boulevard. It boasts 3,933 luxurious rooms and an incredible 156,000 square feet of total gaming space. Of course, craps tables occupy a portion of that sprawling gaming space.
Everything about Bellagio Las Vegas screams luxury and decadence. From the marble pillars and hallways to the vast Chairman Suite, which includes an indoor garden and a full-time butler service. The casino is also home to the renowned Bellagio fountains, which dazzle awestruck onlookers with regular water displays.
Casino games aside, the Bellagio is famous for its high-stakes poker room, formerly known as Bobby's Room. Here, the world's elite-level professional poker players and ultra-rich businesspeople battle it out for millions of dollars on the turn of a card.
Caesars Palace, Las Vegas
Right next to Bellagio, at 3570 South Las Vegas Boulevard, is where you find the gargantuan Caesars Palace. The Roman Empire-themed mega resorts opened to the gambling public on August 5, 1966, and has since become one of the most iconic casino and hotel resorts on the planet.
Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel with over 3,900 rooms and suites across six towers. Its gaming floor is less vast than the Bellagio but covers 124,181 square feet. Few casinos can match the ambiance Caesars Palace creates. Caesars Forum, the venue's original casino from the 1960s, has an enormous chandelier shaped like a Roman medallion, with 100,000 handmade and hand-polished crystals adorning it.
Like Bellagio, Caesars Palace has a bustling poker room, a massive range of slots, and a vibrant sportsbook, which is fitting with the casino's history of hosting some of the biggest boxing matches the world has ever witnessed. The casino is also the place in Las Vegas to enjoy some retail therapy because the Caesars Palace Forum has dozens of shops and stores from the world’s most prominent brands and designers.
Foxwoods Resort Casino, Connecticut
It is not only Las Vegas casinos that are huge in the United States because Connecticut is the home to the third-largest land-based casino in the country regarding floor space. Foxwoods Resort Casino, at 350 Trolley Line Boulevard, features not one, not two, but six casinos across its sprawling 9 million square feet resort.
Owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, Foxwoods Resort Casino opened on July 5, 1986, as a high-stakes bingo hall but after partnering with the Chinese-Malaysian businessman Lim Goh Tong, began offering casino table games in 1992 and slots a year later.
Foxwoods boasts 344,000 square feet of gaming space, almost three times more than Las Vegas' Caesars Palace! You can find over 250 gaming tables with 22 game types and a staggering 6,300 slots at Foxwoods! The gigantic resort is also home to the world's third-largest poker room, with only the Los Angeles-based Commerce Casino and Bicycle Casino beating it regarding the available poker tables.
Casino de Monte-Carlo, Monaco
The Monte Carlo Casino, officially named Casino de Monte-Carlo, is synonymous with gambling. It is one of the world's oldest casinos, having opened its doors in July 1865, more than 150 years ago. Millions of gamblers visit the Monte Carlo Casino annually, partly because it has featured in several Hollywood blockbusters, including several James Bond movies.
The casino has found itself in the headlines twice for epic gambling wins. In 1873, Joseph Jagger took the casino for every chip it held after taking advantage of a bias in one of its roulette wheels. Jagger became known as the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
Forty years later, there was an infamous example of a gambler's fallacy when the ball fell in black 26 times in a row during a roulette session. Patrons lost millions of francs betting against black because they incorrectly believed the ball was due to land on red.
The Venetian Macau, Macau
No list of global casinos offering craps would be complete without The Venetian Macau. Why? Because the Las Vegas Sands-owned property is the largest land-based casino on the planet, thanks to an almost unbelievable 550,000 square feet of gaming floor space. Indeed, the resort is the largest single-structure hotel in Asia and the tenth-largest building in the world by floor area; The Venetian Macau covers 10.5 million square feet!
The Venetian Macau opened for business on August 28, 2007, and continues the Venice, Italy, theme of the Las Vegas property bearing the same name. Some 800 gaming tables and 3,400 slots pack the gaming floor, while the rest of the property houses 3,000 suites, 1.6 million square feet of retail space, and a 1.2 million square feet convention center. The Venetian Macau truly is a sight to behold.
