The New York Plaza offers Mega Frenzy Bingo (essentially, the old-fashioned church-goers’ game on steroids) and a race book that outdoes the Big Apple’s famed OTB (off-track betting). Beijing Gaming Plaza, for example, aims to replicate the Asian gaming experience, complete with the baccarat spinoff Dai Bac (it comes with innovative, high-paying bonus bets), mythical beasts scattered around for good luck and a top-flight Mongolian restaurant. To keep players engaged, the casino is broken up into nine plazas, with each one themed to a particular city. Getting clever with its seemingly endless expanse of house-crushing opportunity, Winstar has 8,600 machines, 100 table-games, a fantastic poker room (it boasts 55 tables and has been the site of multi-million-dollar tournaments), and three high-limit rooms. Its 600,000-square-feet of gaming space make WinStar the most generously proportioned gambling joint in the world. But, amazingly, that is where the world’s largest casino resides.

If someone asked you to guess the location of the world’s largest casino, you would not immediately go with Thackerville, Oklahoma, right in the middle of America’s cowboy-country, not far from the Texas border.