Miami Valley Gaming Review: What the Lebanon Racino Permits

Miami Valley Gaming sits on State Route 63 in Lebanon, roughly halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton, and it is a racino, not a casino. The licence is the reason its floor looks the way it does.

Why Miami Valley Gaming Is a Racino, Not a Casino

The venue holds a video lottery terminal licence issued by the Ohio Lottery Commission. A racino licence permits VLTs and electronic table games, where the outcome is machine-determined. It does not permit a dealt table, so there is no live blackjack or roulette at Miami Valley Gaming and there legally cannot be.

Listings get this wrong often. The old federal Class II and Class III labels turn up attached to Ohio venues in published guides, and they simply do not apply here, because those categories come from tribal gaming law and Ohio has no tribal casinos.

Miami Valley Gaming in Review: Floor, Racing and Hours

Harness racing is the older half of the operation, and the pari-mutuel side runs on its own calendar instead of the gaming floor’s. Any Miami Valley Gaming review that treats the two as one schedule will mislead you on when the place is busy.

The site is a joint venture between Delaware North and Churchill Downs, and its gaming floor opened in 2013. Warren County has no other gaming venue, which makes this the default stop for a wide stretch of southwest Ohio between the two metros.

What Is On the Floor

The VLT floor is the bulk of the operation, with electronic table games beside it. Those electronic tables are worth understanding before you arrive: they look like a table, they take bets like a table, and the result comes from the machine, not from a dealer’s hands. Some players do not care about the distinction. Others care a great deal.

A useful Miami Valley Gaming review will say which of those two you are, because the answer decides whether this venue or a drive to Cincinnati is the better evening.

The Harness Side

Harness racing is the older business on the site and it keeps its own calendar. Race nights and gaming hours are not the same thing, and the pari-mutuel windows do not follow the floor.

The Miami Valley Gaming racino model is the standard Ohio arrangement rather than an exception: racing came first, video lottery terminals were bolted on under separate authority, and the two now share a car park without sharing a schedule.

Location and Who It Serves

Lebanon sits in Warren County, between two metros and belonging to neither. Cincinnati is roughly half an hour south, Dayton a similar distance north. Warren County has no other gaming venue, and neither do most of the counties around it, which gives this site a wide catchment for a building that is not in a major city.

If a dealt table is what you want from southwest Ohio, Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati is the closest venue licensed to provide one.

Figures to Treat With Care

The gaming-floor figure on this page is the operator’s own published number and machine counts change with the floor plan. This site records what the venue publishes and does not estimate the gaps.

The minimum age is 21. The Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline is available at all hours on 1-800-589-9966.

How 186,000 Square Feet Compares

Miami Valley Gaming has the second-largest published gaming floor in Ohio at 186,000 square feet, behind only MGM Northfield Park. Both are racinos, so the two biggest floors in the state belong to the licence class that cannot deal a table.

That is worth knowing before driving here for dealt blackjack. Size signals nothing about the games on offer. The licence does, and this one permits video lottery terminals and electronic tables only.

Who Runs It and Who Owns It

This venue has no separate landlord. It is a joint venture between Delaware North and Churchill Downs, which own and run it together, so the single owner line that misleads at most Ohio racinos is accurate here.