There are plenty of casinos in New York to choose from, with 18-licensed destinations to choose from in the Empire State. And with sports betting having launched here in January 2022, there are betting options aplenty for NY natives to choose from.
So while casino sites are not available to play at (yet, hopefully), you still likely don't need to travel far to play slots, blackjack, or roulette in New York. And it's a pretty big industry here, too, with the fourth highest gross gaming revenue for casinos out of all US states as recently as 2022 at $4.2 billion. So while it's not Las Vegas or Atlantic City, there is a pretty booming industry in New York, with multiple billion-dollar casino projects on the way.
Most of the recent buzz around betting in New York has revolved around sports, but we're Casinos.com - the clue is in our name. We wanted to find out exactly where the luckiest place for casino betting in New York was. To do that, we measured 15 of the most popular casinos in the state to find out which is the luckiest casino, and in turn, which is the unluckiest out of the following;
To do this, our research and analytics teams scraped review data on each of the casinos listed above related to luck-related keywords. So, for example, reviews that had one instance of "lucky", "won", "winning", "success" and other terms that could signal some big wins.
If we had the exact answer to this, we'd be there and not here. How casino games work is essentially the same in every establishment, with slight rule variations such as slot volatilities or house rules in blackjack. Our data concentrated on real-life reviews of people who had stepped foot in each casino, and played there with real money.
But, with that said, the Saratoga Casino Hotel emerged as the luckiest casino in New York according to visitor reviews. Located in Saratoga Springs, this casino is open from 9 am to 5 am daily and boasts slots, video poker, and all the other fan favorites you can expect to find at any casino worth its salt.
And, with a luck percentage of 25.74%, they can now lay claim to being the luckiest casino in the entire state - if visitor reviews are anything to go by. They had by far the most instances of the word "lucky", despite having just 521 reviews, making them just 6th in terms of total reviews per casino.
In second place - just about with a 25.71% rating - was the Empire City Casino. The MGM Resorts brand located in the Big Apple was just 0.03% off the top spot.
Luck-related keywords such as 'winning', 'won', and 'bonus' were plentiful among the 424 reviews. The Empire City Casino is basically slot machine heaven, with thousands on-site and 4,600 games in total.
Rivers Casino and Resort rounded off the top three, with the Turning Stone Resort Casino (21.33%) and Seneca Allegany Casino (21.33%) exactly level-pegging in terms of their luck-related keyword percentages, leaving them tied-fourth (this is the first time this has happened!).
A special mention to the Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack, the most reviewed casino in New York, which also had the highest percentage of 4 and 5-star reviews with a breathtaking 91.56%. Great work, Finger Lakes!
If one thing is perceived to be lucky, then it only makes sense another must be unlucky, right? Unfortunately, if the user reviews are to be believed, that's where the Resorts World Catskills Casino comes in, with a rating of 15.49% in terms of luck-related keywords.
They were closely followed by their namesake Resorts World Casino New York City at 16.7%, with Tiogo Downs Casino Resort also performing poorly at 16.89%.
Casino | Total Reviews | 4/5* Reviews | % of 4/5* Reviews |
---|---|---|---|
Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack | 1,878 | 1,719 | 91.56% |
Akwesasne Mohawk Casino | 347 | 248 | 71.40% |
Seneca Allegany Casino | 361 | 241 | 66.76% |
Tioga Downs Casino Resort | 225 | 147 | 65.33% |
Turning Stone Resort Casino | 1281 | 824 | 64.33% |
Vernon Downs Casino | 164 | 102 | 62.20% |
Seneca Niagara Resort & Casino | 1853 | 1148 | 61.99% |
del Lago Resort & Casino | 602 | 371 | 61.46% |
Hamburg Gaming | 901 | 522 | 57.94% |
Rivers Casino and Resort | 311 | 173 | 55.63% |
Saratoga Casino Hotel | 591 | 328 | 55.53% |
Empire City Casino | 424 | 199 | 46.92% |
Resorts World Catskills - Casino | 142 | 60 | 42.25% |
Monticello Casino and Raceway | 155 | 62 | 40.00% |
Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino | 95 | 38 | 40.00% |
Resorts World New York City | 389 | 111 | 28.51% |
Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with luck to determine the luckiest and unluckiest casinos in the state of New York. We calculated the percentage of luck-rated mentions in the total Tripadvisor reviews.
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Colm Phelan has spent several years working in the iGaming industry and has plenty of experience when it comes to writing, researching and rigorously testing online casinos and sportsbooks. While Colm has invested a lot of his time into the digital marketing world but his other passions include poker and a variety of sports including golf, NFL and football.
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