Hollywood Casino Columbus Review: Franklin County's Only Dealt Tables

Hollywood Casino Columbus is a commercial casino in Columbus, Franklin County. Its gaming floor opened in 2012. It is one of the four Ohio venues licensed to offer live table games.

The venue holds an Ohio Casino Control Commission casino licence. The state’s split between casino and lottery licences is what puts a live pit on this side of Columbus and not the other.

The Only Dealt Tables in Franklin County

Hollywood Casino Columbus holds a casino licence from the Ohio Casino Control Commission, and that makes it the only venue in Franklin County permitted to deal a live table. The county’s other gaming site, Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs, is a racino and cannot.

That pairing makes Columbus the clearest illustration in the state of what the licence split actually means. Two venues, one county, roughly twenty minutes apart, and only one of them can put a dealer behind a table.

Location and Access

The site is at 200 Georgesville Road, on the west side of the city near the I-270 outerbelt, not downtown. It opened in 2012, in the first wave that followed the 2009 constitutional amendment, and PENN Entertainment operates it.

What Is On Site

Rooms are available, along with the usual mix of restaurants and an events calendar. The venue publishes its own promotions and event pages, and those turn over faster than any third-party listing can track.

Numbers to Read Carefully

The gaming-floor figure recorded here comes from the operator and should be read as an order of magnitude, not a count. Machine numbers move whenever the floor is reconfigured.

The minimum age is 21. Ohio’s voluntary exclusion programme covers this venue, and the Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline is available around the clock on 1-800-589-9966.

Why the Outerbelt Location Matters

Hollywood Casino Columbus does not sit downtown, and that shapes the visit more than any feature of the floor. Georgesville Road puts it near the I-270 outerbelt on the west side, which means arriving by car is straightforward and arriving without one is not.

The contrast with the state’s other big-city casino is instructive. JACK Cleveland Casino occupies a former department store on Public Square, in the middle of a downtown grid. This one is a purpose-built site with its own approach roads. Both hold the same class of licence and offer the same category of games; the experience of getting to them has almost nothing in common.

Franklin County’s other venue, Scioto Downs, is also away from the core, on the south side. Neither of the county’s two gaming sites is a walk from the centre.

The Largest of the Four Commercial Casinos

At 160,000 square feet, Hollywood Casino Columbus has the biggest floor of the four venues licensed to deal live table games. The other three sit at 125,000 in Toledo and 100,000 each in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Two racinos are larger still. MGM Northfield Park and Miami Valley Gaming both exceed this floor by a wide margin without holding a casino licence, which is why floor area is a poor proxy for what a venue may offer.

Who Runs It and Who Owns It

PENN Entertainment holds the licence and runs the floor. Gaming and Leisure Properties owns the building. The two are separate companies and have been since the real-estate arm was spun out, so a listing naming one as the owner is telling half the story.

Two Licence Classes in One City

Columbus is one of only two Ohio cities holding both licence classes. This venue may deal live table games on the west side; Scioto Downs, south of the downtown core on South High Street, runs video lottery terminals under a Lottery Commission licence and may not.

Both are inside the city, which makes Columbus the easiest place in Ohio to see what the licence distinction means in practice. Same city, same evening, two different floors.

Cincinnati is the other, pairing Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati with Belterra Park. No other Ohio city holds both.