Scioto Downs Review: The Table Games Question and the VLT Floor

Scioto Downs is a racino on South High Street in Columbus, and the question it gets asked most has a one-word answer.

Scioto Downs: What to Expect

The Scioto Downs casino floor runs video lottery terminals under a licence from the Ohio Lottery Commission, alongside live harness racing on the track. Two operations, one site, separate calendars. Harness racing at the site goes back to 1959, decades before the gaming floor.

Premier Gaming and Racing

Does Scioto Downs have table games? No. Not in the dealt sense. Dealing blackjack, roulette or craps requires an Ohio Casino Control Commission casino licence, and only the state’s four commercial casinos hold one. What the Scioto Downs casino floor offers instead is a large VLT selection plus electronic table games, where the machine determines the result, not a dealer.

That answer is fixed by law rather than by the operator, so it will not change with a refurbishment or a new floor plan. Any Scioto Downs review telling you otherwise is describing a venue class the building does not belong to.

In Review: Two Names, Two Owners, Two Different Years

The venue opened its gaming floor in 2012, making it the earliest VLT floor in the state, and it is operated under the Caesars group after the Eldorado merger. The Eldorado name still appears in signage and in search results, which is why the same venue turns up under two names.

Franklin County holds one other gaming venue, Hollywood Casino Columbus, and that one is a commercial casino. If the dealt table is what you came for, it is the one to drive to.

Table Games, Electronic Tables and the Difference

It is worth being precise, because the wording in venue marketing often is not. Electronic table games exist on this floor. Dealt table games do not. The machine settles the outcome, so the question “does Scioto Downs have table games” gets a different answer depending on whether the asker means the furniture or the dealer.

If the dealer is the point, drive to Hollywood Casino Columbus. It is in the same county and holds the casino licence this venue does not.

Harness Racing Came First

Harness racing is the older business here by more than half a century, and it runs on its own calendar. Race nights and gaming hours do not coincide, and the pari-mutuel side is not simply an extension of the floor.

The 1959 date on this page refers to racing at the site. The gaming floor came in 2012, and it was the first video lottery terminal floor to open anywhere in Ohio. Conflating those two years is the single most common error in published listings of this venue.

Names, Owners and Why Search Results Disagree

The venue appears under more than one name. Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs is the form still used in signage and in a good deal of published material, and the Eldorado group was absorbed into Caesars in 2020. A Scioto Downs review from before that merger will name a company that no longer operates under that name, which is why the same building surfaces twice in search results under different owners.

Getting There, and the Numbers

6000 South High Street puts the venue on the south side of Columbus, away from the downtown core. Franklin County holds one other gaming venue and it is the commercial casino.

Gaming-floor figures on this page come from the operator’s own published material. Machine counts change with the floor plan and should be read as an order of magnitude.

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

117,000 Square Feet, and the First VLT Floor in Ohio

The Scioto Downs gaming floor covers 117,000 square feet, which puts it in the middle of the ten Ohio venues that publish a figure, and third among the racinos. It also opened first: the video lottery terminals here started in June 2012, before any other racino floor in the state.

Being first and being large are separate things. MGM Northfield Park and Miami Valley Gaming both run bigger floors under the same class of licence, and all three are barred from dealing a table.

Who Runs It and Who Owns It

Caesars Entertainment both owns and operates this site, so operator and owner are the same party. The name to watch is the older one: material published before 2020 calls it Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs, and the Eldorado group was absorbed into Caesars that year.