Belterra Park Review: The Racino and Racetrack in Cincinnati

Belterra Park is a racino in Cincinnati, Hamilton County. Its gaming floor opened in 2014. Thoroughbred racing has been run at the site since 1925, when it opened as the Coney Island Race Track and later ran as River Downs, long before the gaming floor. As a racino it operates video lottery terminals only; live table games are not permitted under its licence.

The venue holds an Ohio Lottery Commission video lottery terminal licence. The line Ohio draws between its two licence classes is what decides whether a dealer ever works this floor.

A Racino on the East Side of Cincinnati

Belterra Park is a racino, so its floor is video lottery terminals and electronic table games under a licence from the Ohio Lottery Commission. No dealer works a table here. For that, Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati holds the county’s casino licence.

The site sits along the Ohio River on the east side of the city, on grounds that ran under a different name for most of their history as a racetrack.

Racing and the Floor

Thoroughbred racing is the older business here and keeps its own calendar. Race days and gaming hours are separate, and the pari-mutuel operation is not simply an extension of the gaming floor.

The gaming floor opened in 2014, which puts it among the later racinos to come online. The racetrack long predates it, and this site records the two separately instead of printing one date for both.

Getting the Details Right

Boyd Gaming is recorded as the operator. No street address appears in the material this site works from, so none is given. The gaming-floor figure comes from the operator’s published material and moves with the floor plan.

Age and Support

The minimum age is 21. The Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline is reachable at any hour on 1-800-589-9966.

Arriving Expecting a Casino

The practical problem at Belterra Park is expectation, not anything about the venue. It carries a casino-sized floor and a racetrack, and plenty of visitors arrive assuming a dealer somewhere on the premises. There is not one, and no member of staff can produce one, because the licence does not permit it.

Hamilton County holds one venue of each class, which turns the licence distinction into a routing decision, not a technicality. Roughly twenty minutes separate a floor where a dealer runs the table from a floor where the machine does. Deciding which of those you want before setting off is the whole of the planning required.

Two other counties are arranged the same way. Franklin pairs Hollywood Casino Columbus with Scioto Downs, and Cuyahoga pairs JACK Cleveland Casino with JACK Thistledown Racino, though in Cuyahoga the two sit in different municipalities rather than one city.

48,000 Square Feet, the Smallest Floor in Ohio

At 48,000 square feet Belterra Park has the smallest gaming floor of the ten Ohio venues that publish one, roughly a quarter of MGM Northfield Park’s under the same class of licence. Across those ten the range runs from this floor up to 200,000 square feet, a spread of more than four to one. Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway publishes no figure, so it sits outside the comparison.

Size is the wrong reason to choose between them, because none of the seven may deal a table. The thoroughbred racing and the riverside setting are what distinguish this site, not the square footage.

Who Runs It and Who Owns It

Boyd Gaming runs the gaming business. The property itself belongs to Gaming and Leisure Properties, the real-estate company that also owns the four Hollywood-branded Ohio venues. Listings that print a single owner for a racino are usually describing one of the two and implying both.

The Other Cincinnati Venue Has a Different Licence

Cincinnati holds both Ohio licence classes, and Belterra Park is the racino half. Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati, downtown and about twenty minutes west, holds a commercial casino licence and may deal live table games. This site cannot.

A visitor deciding between the two is choosing between a dealt pit and a thoroughbred track, which is a clearer choice than most Ohio cities offer. Columbus is the only other city with both classes inside it.