Are there casinos in Tennessee? No - here's what's nearest
No. Tennessee has no casinos at all - no commercial casino, no tribal casino, not one gaming floor in the state.
Nearest casino in our directory to Nashville: Harrah's Metropolis Casino & hotel, Metropolis, Illinois - about 128 miles drive.
Why there are no casinos in Tennessee
Tennessee is a no-casino state by omission rather than by a single famous ban: the state has never licensed commercial casino gaming, and because it has no federally recognised tribe with trust land inside its borders, the tribal route that gave neighbouring North Carolina its casinos does not exist here either.
That is worth stating plainly, because the phrasing of the question matters here. People searching for casinos in Tennessee are usually not looking for a directory listing - they are trying to find out whether the trip they have in mind is possible at all. The answer is that it is, but it starts at the state line rather than inside it, and how far you travel depends entirely on which corner of Tennessee you set off from.
Because Tennessee is long and narrow, where you live changes the answer completely - Memphis sits closer to a casino floor than almost anywhere else in the state.
What you can play inside Tennessee
- State lottery
- Running since 2004, with draw games and scratch tickets sold statewide. Proceeds are earmarked for education programmes.
- Online sports betting
- Legal and live since late 2020, and unusual in being online-only - Tennessee licenses mobile sportsbooks but has no retail sportsbook counters, because there are no casinos to put them in.
- Charitable gaming
- Very tightly drawn. Non-profits can run an annual event only with specific legislative approval, so there is no standing bingo-hall circuit of the kind Virginia or Vermont have.
None of the above is a substitute for a casino floor, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. The point of listing them is that the practical question behind are there casinos in Tennessee is usually "what are my options" - and the honest options split cleanly into what is licensed in-state and what requires crossing a border.
The 10 closest casinos to Nashville
Straight-line distance from Nashville, nearest first. Road distance will be longer than the straight line, so treat these as a ranking rather than a drive time. Chain brands are shown once, at their closest location.
One class of venue is deliberately missing from the table below. Kentucky licenses gaming halls attached to horse racing - historical-racing machine floors rather than licensed casinos - and several sit on the Tennessee line, closer to Nashville than anything in our directory. We list casinos, so they are not ranked here; if you are driving north out of Nashville they are worth knowing about before you commit to a longer trip.
| # | Casino | Where | Miles | State page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harrah's Metropolis Casino & hotel | Metropolis, Illinois | 128 | Illinois casinos → |
| 2 | Bally's Evansville Casino & Hotel | Evansville, Indiana | 133 | Indiana casinos → |
| 3 | Casino Entertainment | Louisville, Kentucky | 147 | Kentucky casinos → |
| 4 | Caesars Southern Indiana Hotel and Casino | Elizabeth, Indiana | 147 | Indiana casinos → |
| 5 | Century Casino Caruthersville | Caruthersville, Missouri | 160 | Missouri casinos → |
| 6 | Century Casino Cape Girardeau | Cape Girardeau, Missouri | 171 | Missouri casinos → |
| 7 | Harrah's Cherokee Valley River Casino & Hotel | Murphy, North Carolina | 173 | North Carolina casinos → |
| 8 | Walker’s Bluff Casino Resort | Carterville, Illinois | 173 | Illinois casinos → |
| 9 | Birmingham Race Course Casino | Birmingham, Alabama | 179 | Alabama casinos → |
| 10 | SkaterZ | Fairfield, Alabama | 186 | Alabama casinos → |
If you are starting from Memphis instead
Tennessee is big enough that the answer changes across the state.
| # | Casino | Where | Miles | State page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1st Jackpot Casino Tunica | Tunica, Mississippi | 26 | Mississippi casinos → |
| 2 | Tunica Roadhouse | Tunica, Mississippi | 26 | Mississippi casinos → |
| 3 | Horseshoe Tunica | Tunica, Mississippi | 26 | Mississippi casinos → |
| 4 | Fitz Tunica Casino & Hotel | Tunica, Mississippi | 28 | Mississippi casinos → |
| 5 | Hollywood Casino & Hotel Tunica | Tunica, Mississippi | 31 | Mississippi casinos → |