Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort
150,000 square feet of gaming floor tucked into the North Carolina mountains, with roughly 3,000 slots and 160-plus tables to match.
Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort runs roughly 3,000 slot machines and more than 160 table games across 150,000 square feet of gaming space in the North Carolina mountains, owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and operated by Caesars Entertainment. The property has grown through four separate renovations since it opened in 1997. Here's what's actually on the floor, how the room operates, and what to know before you play.
Slot Machines and Video Poker
Caesars' own page for the property lists 88 Fortunes among its current games, a widely recognized Asian-themed title. A dedicated article naming the six best slots to actually play here adds a more specific lineup: Happy Lantern Lightning Cash, a five-reel, 25-payline game with multiple progressive jackpots; Star Watch Magma, built around a flowers-jaguars-volcanoes theme; Buffalo Grand, which swaps the usual buffalo herd for eagles, coyotes, and wolves across a nonstandard reel layout; Golden Egypt, leaning on Ankh and Eye-of-Horus imagery; Star Watch Jungle, a frogs-and-lemurs companion to Star Watch Magma; and Agent Magnifying Jackpots, a detective-noir theme built around dogs, violins, and typewriters. A first-hand casino-review blog separately confirms Lightning Link slot machines on the floor -- called out by name as a personal favorite -- alongside a non-slot standout: the Big Wheel, which the same reviewer says is worth spending hours on. Between the Caesars page, the dedicated slots article, and the review blog, the lineup skews toward Asian-themed and Star Watch-family titles more than the buffalo/link cabinets that dominate most other regional floors, with the Big Wheel offering something genuinely different from a standard reel game. That mix says something about how this floor has developed: rather than chasing the same handful of nationally ubiquitous cabinets every regional casino carries, Harrah's Cherokee has built out a deeper bench of themed and franchise-specific titles, likely a function of the gaming floor having nearly doubled in size during the 2009-2013 renovation and needing enough distinct product to fill it.
Table Games and the Poker Room
The floor runs more than 160 table games across its 150,000 square feet, live table games having launched in 2012 after North Carolina amended its gaming compact with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to permit them. Poker runs out of a dedicated World Series of Poker Room with 20 tables, spreading No-Limit Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, and 7-Card Stud, including $2-to-$5 No-Limit Hold'em cash games. The room runs 24/7 and hosts official WSOP Circuit Ring Events, giving it a level of tournament credibility that most regional poker rooms don't carry. A sports booking room, added during the property's 2018-2021 renovation, sits alongside the table-games area, loaded with large TVs for watching games while placing bets, parlays, and futures -- a relatively recent addition compared to the slots and table games, which have been part of the floor since the 1990s and early 2010s respectively.
Layout, Decor, and Atmosphere
One policy worth knowing before you walk in: indoor smoking is prohibited on the common gaming floor. A Tribal Council ordinance permits it only in specially designed, fully enclosed sections built specifically to prevent smoke and vapor from reaching the main floor -- a stricter standard than the 'designated smoking area' policy many casinos use, since those enclosed sections have to be purpose-built rather than simply roped off. That leaves the bulk of the 150,000-square-foot floor smoke-free by default. The sports booking room adds a different kind of energy to the space, with large-format screens built for watching games rather than just placing a bet and walking away, giving that corner of the floor a sports-bar feel distinct from the slots and table pits around it. That section dates specifically to the property's most recent 2018-2021 renovation, one of four separate expansion phases the floor has gone through since 1997, so different corners of the same 150,000-square-foot space were built years, sometimes over a decade, apart from each other.
History and Location
Harrah's Cherokee opened on November 13, 1997, the result of a 1994 proposal that led to a gaming compact between the State of North Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The tribe owns the facility outright; Caesars Entertainment operates it under contract. The casino was profitable almost immediately, becoming the closest legal gambling option for Atlanta, Charlotte, and North Carolina's Research Triangle, and in 2001 the state raised the legal gambling age here from 18 to 21. Four major renovations have reshaped the property since: a 2002 expansion added 22,025 square feet of gaming space and a 252-room hotel; a 2005 renovation added a 15-story tower with roughly 320 rooms; a $650 million renovation between 2009 and 2013 added a 21-story tower with about 532 rooms, nearly doubled the gaming floor to its current 150,000 square feet, and added an events center and spa; and a $250 million renovation between 2018 and 2021 added a 19-story tower with roughly 725 rooms along with the WSOP poker room and sports betting area described above. The property is now the largest hotel in North Carolina, with 1,833 total rooms -- a scale that's grown almost entirely through these four expansions rather than a single original build.
What to Know Before You Play
A few practical notes: the floor is smoke-free outside of a small number of purpose-built enclosed sections, worth knowing if that affects where you want to sit. If poker is the draw, the WSOP Room's 24/7 schedule and $2-$5 cash games make it accessible outside of tournament hours, not just during Circuit Ring Events. And if you're deciding between a slot session and the Big Wheel, know that at least one detailed review singles the wheel out as worth real time rather than a quick spin. As always, if you're standing at an unfamiliar machine and want a fast read before committing money, photographing it and asking 6-lab's Advisor beats guessing.
Notable games on the floor
- 88 Fortunes
- Happy Lantern Lightning Cash
- Star Watch Magma
- Buffalo Grand
- Golden Egypt
- Star Watch Jungle
- Agent Magnifying Jackpots
- Lightning Link
- Big Wheel
Good to know
- Features 150,000 square feet of gaming space with approximately 3,000 slot machines and over 160 table games.
- The World Series of Poker Room runs 20 tables spreading NL Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, and 7-Card Stud, including $2-$5 No-Limit Hold'em cash games, open 24/7, and hosts official WSOP Circuit Ring Events.
- Indoor smoking is prohibited on the common gaming floor; a Tribal Council ordinance only allows it in specially designed, fully enclosed sections built to prevent smoke from reaching the main floor.
- The casino floor includes a sports booking room added in 2021, loaded with large TVs for watching games and placing sports bets, parlays, and futures.
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