Iowa’s Most Luxurious Casinos, According To Tripadvisor Reviews

Iowa is home to 19 commercial casino destinations, including four tribal establishments, which collectively provide jobs for thousands of residents across the state. While Iowa has yet to legalize online casinos, Iowans don’t need to travel far to indulge their love for gambling.

Iowa was quick to embrace sports betting after the US Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. 

The state was among the first to legalize it, with legislation passing on August 15, 2019. Today, Iowans have access to numerous online sportsbooks. Unfortunately, the same progress has not been made with online casinos, which is a disappointment for the team at Casinos.com.

The casino industry in Iowa is thriving, ranking 12th in the nation for gross gaming revenue and tribal revenue shares to the state. However, the abundance of land-based casinos more than makes up for it, as Iowa boasts one of the best selections in the country. 

At Casinos.com, we’re always on the lookout for interesting data about casinos across the US—it's in our name, after all! Recently, we decided to uncover which casino in Iowa is considered the most luxurious, based on real-life reviews from Tripadvisor users who shared their experiences.

We use a consistent methodology for each state, analyzing keywords in Tripadvisor reviews that we associate with luxury, such as "luxury," "luxurious," "comfort," "magnificent," and similar terms. 

While this approach doesn't provide a definitive measure of luxury, it does offer some insight into whether real-life visitors to these casinos felt like they hit a streak of good fortune. So, take the results with a grain of salt, but they do give us a glimpse into how luxurious these casinos might seem to their guests.

After extensive research, we found that Rhythm City Casino Resort stands out as the most luxurious casino in Iowa, earning an impressive 11.78% on our luxury index. The high score was largely due to 26 mentions of the word "comfortable," along with terms like "pleasure," "impressive," and "fancy," all of which point to the resort's luxurious atmosphere. 

Here's what some visitors had to say about their experience.

“Our room was nice, clean and comfortable. It was a nice weekend stay,” wrote one traveler, while Joe added, “The rooms were well appointed, beds new and comfortable and the bathroom/shower was impressive.”

Next on the list is Riverside Casino & Golf Resort. With golf often associated with luxury, it's no surprise this resort ranked so highly, narrowly missing the top spot by just 0.16%, achieving an impressive 11.63% on our luxury index. Like its competitor, the resort received many mentions of "comfortable," along with words like "indulge" and "luxury," reinforcing its upscale reputation.

One visitor shared, “Stayed overnight in the hotel—clean, spacious, and with the most beautiful bathroom shower. You must eat at the steakhouse; we had a duck breast appetizer that was to die for. It was a little piece of luxury in the middle of farmland.” Sounds pretty good to us!

The Grand Falls Casino & Golf Resort (9.68%) and Ameristar Casino Hotel (7.38%) also posted solid scores for luxury among Iowa casinos. But enough about the highlights—let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum.

Before we dive into the lower rankings, it's important to note that just because certain reviews lack luxury-related keywords doesn’t necessarily mean the establishment isn’t luxurious. This method isn’t an exact science, but we believe it offers a fairly balanced perspective.

Bottom of the pile was the Diamond Jo Casino, coming in at just 2.76% in our index. The Northwood based casino and hotel presented just 15 luxury-related keywords out of 543 reviews, although various people mentioned “comfortable” and “impressive”.

Next up was the Hard Rock Casino Sioux City with 3.4%, whilst the most-reviewed casino in the state - Horseshoe Council Bluffs - was third last (or ninth best if you have a glass half full mentality) at 3.66%. 

It should be taken into account that the Horseshoe Council Bluff casino, despite a low percentage score, had by far the most luxury-related keywords at 315, which is no surprise given the total amount of reviews. Some might argue this makes it the most luxurious in the state and in truth, all casinos would need the exact same amount of reviews to present to most accurate data.

Methodology 

Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with luxury to determine the most and least luxurious casinos in the state of Iowa. 

We calculated the percentage of luxury-rated mentions in the total Tripadvisor reviews from the keywords mentioned below. Only casinos with the requisite number of reviews were chosen for this study in order to represent a fair data set. For Iowa, the minimum number of reviews was 90.

Keywords tracked: luxury, luxurious, magnificent, delightful, comfort, comfortable, impressive, pleasure, indulge, extravagant, fancy, exclusive, satisfied

This data was collected in September, 2024. 

Fair Use Policy

The data and graphics on this page are free to use as long as proper credit is given by linking to the original article.

Disclaimer 

The data in this article is intended for entertainment purposes only. Casinos.com does not claim any one casino to be more “luxurious” than another. Please don’t use the information presented in this article as completely factual but rather a representation of real visitor reviews left on Tripadvisor.