Casinos in the Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo (Eugene Sergeev / Bigstockphoto.com)

The official title of the Dominican Republic’s capital city is Santo Domingo de Guzmán and it’s also both the largest city on the island the largest in the Caribbean if you’re basing it on the size of the population. It was founded by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496.

Nowadays it is the cultural, political, commercial, financial and industrial centre of the island, as well as being its main seaport. That means that those visiting the Dominican Republic on a cruise will almost certainly spend some time here. Here’s a look at the casinos here:

Atlantis World Casino

Usually open from eleven in the morning through to three in the morning, it is based over ten thousand square feet and houses two hundred machines. The casino is actually part of the Crowne Plaza hotel and is close to some of the main tourist attractions in the area.

The slots are kept updated fairly regularly, whilst there are also three table games on offer here.

Barceló Santo Domingo

Open from noon until five in the morning, the Barceló Santo Domingo has seventy different slot machines as well as three poker games. There are thirteen table games in total.

Hispaniola Hotel & Casino

The casino here is located as part of the Hispaniola Hotel complex. It offers two hundred slot machines and twenty-seven table games, plus some video poker.

Casino Mirage

The Casino Mirage is stretched over just shy of nine thousand square feet, boasting two hundred slot machines and numerous table games.

Diamante Casino

Promising sixteen table games and fifty gaming machines that offer a wide variety of electronic games for you to play, the Diamante Casino is open from four in the afternoon through to six in the morning. It’s part of a larger hotel with three restaurants.

El Napolitano Hotel & Casino

As the name suggests, the casino here is attached to a hotel. That’s common in the Dominican Republic, however, and doesn’t limit what it offers. That includes forty gaming machines as well as fifteen tables for both poker and other table games.

Hotel Casino Aurora Del Sol

This is a nicely sized casino, based as it is over more than twenty-one thousand square feet. That’s enough room for twenty-three table games and over two hundred and fifty slots and other electronic gaming offerings.

Maunaloa Casino

One of the smaller casinos in the Santo Domingo area, the Maunaloa Casino is open twenty-four hours a day. Its size doesn’t take away from the fact that the likes of roulette, blackjack and three card poker are all available for you to play.

Occidental El Embajador Hotel and Casino

There are twelve tables for games like three card poker and roulette, plus fifty electronic machines featured in the casinos seven and a half thousand square foot of space. It’s open from four in the afternoon to six in the morning.

Paradise Plaza Casino

Open from eleven in the morning through to three in the morning, the Paradise Plaza Casino is set on just over three thousand square foot of space. That’s enough room for one hundred and fifty electronic machines as well as thirteen table games.

Renaissance Jaragua Hotel & Casino

Open twenty-four hours a day, the casino is part of the larger Renaissance Jaragua Hotel complex that has two restaurants and three hundred rooms. The casino itself plays host to thirty-two table games and three hundred and forty-five electronic gaming machines.

Santo Domingo Princess Casino

There are twenty-two table games available at the Santo Domingo Princess Casino, with four hundred electronic games adding to that to provide plenty of entertainment for visitors. Some of those will come from the one hundred plus guest rooms that are part of the hotel attached.

Punta Cana

Punta Cana (Eugene Sergeev / Bigstockphoto.com)

Located within the eastern most province of the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana can face both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The weather is usually gorgeous, which what makes it such a popular destination for holiday-makers.

It’s also one of the hubs on the island for casinos, with many of them located within the hotels in the area. You might well head to the area for the diving that is popular, but when you’re out of the water then any of these casinos might tickle your fancy:

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

One of the best known chains in the world, the Hard Rock company also has a casino in Las Vegas, so it’s no surprise that the one in the Dominican Republic is popular. You can play on the near four hundred electronic machines between ten in the morning and two in the morning.

The rest of the casino is made up of forty-one table games, with roulette, blackjack and punto banco being popular. They’re staffed from two in the afternoon through to two in the morning. The hotel has room for nearly two thousand guests, so no wonder the casino is popular.

Barceló Bávaro Casino

Barceló is a popular chain in the Dominican Republic, with the Punta Cana hotel offering one hundred and fifty electronic machines that operate between two in the afternoon and three in the morning. There’s also twenty-four table games that become available at eight in the evening.

Casino Majestic Punta Cana

The casino is actually not the major attraction here, given there’s also a hotel with more than one thousand rooms that it’s a part of. That probably helps to explain the nine tile and poker tables as well as the thirty-two electronic machines.

Grand Palladium Palace Resort Spa & Casino

This is something of an all-encompassing venue, boasting thirteen restaurants, six bars and a spa. The casino is more of an afterthought than a main feature, with just thirteen tables for poker and other games and even fewer electronic machines.

Iberostar Hotel and Casino

The Iberostar Hotel chain isn’t particularly well-known for its relationship with casinos, so the one in the Dominican Republic keeps things simple. There are seven tables and ten electronic machines, so it’s a smaller venue than many on the island.

Meliá Caribe Tropical

Open from seven in the evening through to three in the morning, the Meliá Caribe Tropical offers sixty electronic gaming machines and twelve tables for the likes of roulette and blackjack. The hotel attached have in excess of a thousand rooms.

Ocean Tower Casino

The Ocean Tower Casino promises guests access to nine table games like roulette and three-card poker as well as more than fifty gaming machines. It’s open from seven in the evening through to three in the morning.

Avalon Casino

Another casino that is open from seven in the evening and lets you play through until three in the morning, the Avalon Casino has one hundred and twenty gaming machines as well as thirty-five tables for the likes of poker and roulette.

Santiago

Santiago

The full title of this city is Santiago de los Caballeros and it is the second-largest one in the Dominican Republic behind the capital. It is the capital of the Santiago Province, as you might well have expected given its name.

The City was founded in 1495 and is a centre for culture and politics on the island. It is also known as La Ciudad Corazón, or the Heartland City, which gives you some indication of what you can expect it to be like should you visit.

Aloha Sol Hotel and Casino

The casino opens at ten in the morning and remains open through until six in the morning, closing for just four hours to be cleaned. It’s not one of the largest on the island, boasting around twenty-five gaming machines.

Hodelpa

There are actually two venues under the Hodelpa brand, with one being Hodelpa Centro Plaza and open from ten in the morning to six in the morning and the other being Hodelpa Gran Almirante. That is open at different times during the week but is the larger of the two.

Matum Hotel & Casino Diamante

There are one hundred and sixty-eight electronic machines available here as well as fourteen different tables games. These range from three-card poker through to roulette, with blackjack and other card games also available. They are open from ten in the morning to six in the morning.

Sosua

Bay of Sosua

Very much a beach town in the Puerto Plata Province, Sosua is divided into three sections. El Batey is the main tourist section, whilst Sosúa Abajo is off towards the airport. Los Charamicos, meanwhile, is the west end of the beach.

Whilst it might be one of the smaller regions of the Dominican Republic, Sosua still has room for a couple of casinos that offer visitors plenty of options when it comes to gaming. Here’s a quick look at each of them:

Coral Reef Casino

The casino is open from three in the afternoon until five in the morning, often attracting visitors from the two hundred and fifty rooms in the hotel attached. There are nineteen table games as well as eighty-two electronic machines here.

Playa Chiquita Resort & Casino

There’s more than twelve thousand square foot of casino at the Playa Chiquita Resort. That’s enough room for sixteen table games like three-card poker, blackjack and roulette. There are also electronic versions of those games in addition to slot machines.

Rio San Juan

Rio San Juan (Андрей Бобровский / Wikipedia.org)

One of the lesser-known parts of the Dominican Republic, Rio San Juan is home to around fifteen thousand people. It is slowly beginning to welcome more and more tourists, which in turn has seen an increase in the number of casinos on offer here.

It’s a great place to head to if you want to get more of an idea of the traditional Dominican Republic. There’s a bird sanctuary as well as a scientific reserve in this part of the island, so is perhaps a spot to head to if you’re not all about the sunbathing.

Club Bahia Principe

The only casino in the area at the time of writing is the Club Bahia Principe, which is open between eight in the evening and three in the morning. The gaming space offers six tables and thirty electronic machines, so it’s not the largest around.

La Romana

La Romana (photosvit / Bigstockphoto.com)

The seventh largest city on the island, La Romana is home to just one casino at the time of writing. It has been a municipality since 1897 and the population within the city limits is over one hundred and thirty thousand.

The city’s name is taken from a device that was used to weigh and measure exports, which gives you an indication of what its purpose was in the past. It was founded as an oil town and is only recently beginning to be re-branded for tourists.

Grand Bahia Principe La Romana

The Grand Bahia Principe La Romana isn’t the largest casino on the island, but it’s big enough to serve the guests that stay in the four hundred rooms of the hotel. There are twenty electronic machines as well as seven tables for poker and other table offerings.

Boca Chica

Boca Chica

Set over a space of around one hundred and forty-five square kilometres, Boca Chica is home to a little over one hundred and twenty thousand residents. It was the home of sugar plantations on the island in the early part of the twentieth century.

During the 1950s and 1960s the area was taken over by the more prosperous families on the Dominican Republic who build summer homes along the beach. By the 1970s, however, the secret was out and it became a popular destination for beach-goers.

Be Live Hamaca Suites

Be Live is a hotel chain that is growing in popularity, which might help to explain the six hundred plus rooms on offer here. The casino is only small, but there’s enough room for tens of electronic machines as well as eight tables.