Method
How the territories are drawn
Each territory is the part of Alberta that lies closer, in a straight line, to one casino than to any other. This page explains how that is measured, and where a straight line stops being useful for planning a trip.
Halfway lines
Take two casinos and draw a line exactly halfway between them. Every point on one side is nearer to the first casino, and every point on the other side is nearer to the second. Keep the side nearer to each casino.
Now repeat that for every pair among the 30 casinos. What remains around each one is its territory, which geometers call a Voronoi cell. The cells are cut along the provincial border, so each one stops at the edge of Alberta.
Every point in the province falls into exactly one territory, and together the 30 cover all 660,806 km².
Try the rule
Three casinos on an empty map. Every spot takes the colour of the nearest point; the borders are the halfway lines. Drag a point and watch the borders move.
Where the points come from
Casino positions come from OpenStreetMap, one map point per casino. Town positions come from the same map. The list holds the 137 places that OpenStreetMap tags as a city or town in Alberta. Villages and hamlets are not in it, and the list was read on October 9, 2026. A reader who lives outside the list can use the location button instead.
The provincial outline used by the guide is the line that cuts the outer territories.
Facts about each casino were checked between October 7 and October 9, 2026. The sources were the casinos' and operators' own pages and AGLC's casino directory. Where a casino site blocks automated reading, archived copies of the same pages were read. Where sources give different figures, the guide leaves the figure out or says that they differ.
Two tools, one answer
Distances from a town to a casino are straight lines over the earth's surface, computed by the guide between two map points. Roads play no part in the sum. Territories are drawn on an equal-area map of Alberta instead. It uses a Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection centred at 54.5 degrees north, 115 degrees west, and areas are measured on it in square kilometres.
Because two different tools are used, the guide compares them town by town. For all 137 towns, the territory drawn on the map and the nearest casino by straight line agree.
What a straight line misses
A straight line ignores roads, rivers, mountains and ferries. It also knows nothing about opening hours, or whether a casino has live tables or a hotel. Hours on the casino pages are local Mountain time as each casino publishes them, and holiday hours should be checked on the venue's own site.
So the nearest casino in a straight line can be a longer drive than the second one. Cochrane is 31.6 km from Grey Eagle Resort & Casino and 31.8 km from ACE Casino Airport, straight line, not road. Before setting out, check the road on a map.
Questions
What is a Voronoi cell?
It is the part of a surface that is closer to one point than to any other point in a set. Here the points are the 30 casinos, and each cell, cut along the provincial border, is one territory.
Why not use driving distances?
Every distance in this guide is a straight line over the earth's surface between two map points. Roads, rivers, mountains and ferries are not counted, so the figures describe the map, not the trip.
How often is the list of casinos checked?
The facts on this site, including the list of 30 casinos, were checked between October 7 and October 9, 2026. No other check date is given here.