A racetrack casino without slots
Most American racinos make their money from slot machines or video lottery terminals. Canterbury Park never got them. The legislature authorized a card room at the track in 1999, and every attempt to add machines since then has failed, so the gaming side is a card casino regulated by the Minnesota Racing Commission rather than a gaming board.
That distinction matters for visitors. The floor has dealers, chips and felt, and the law caps it at 80 tables in play at once, with most bets limited to $100 and single-wager games to $300. The what is a racino guide sets Minnesota’s model against the slot-based racinos in states such as Iowa and Indiana.
Inside the Canterbury Park casino
The card casino sits on the first level of the grandstand, open 24 hours a day and smoke-free. Blackjack is dealt from four-deck and six-deck shoes, and the menu adds no-commission baccarat, Pai Gow, Three Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em, Mississippi Stud, Criss Cross, I Luv Suits and DJ Wild, several with progressive jackpots well into six figures.
The poker room, which the track calls the largest in the Midwest, runs cash games around the clock in Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Seven-Card Stud and rotating mixed games, from $3/$6 kill games to $40/$80 limits. Tournaments run weekly, and the autumn 2026 schedule included a Fall Poker Classic series and a Veterans Day event with $2,000 added.
Live racing and the 2026 meet
Canterbury Park races Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses in a summer meet. The 2026 season, the track’s 32nd since reopening, ran from May 23 to September 19 on select Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Evening cards started at 5 p.m., Sunday and holiday programs at 1 p.m., and the final week switched to a 4 p.m. start.
The meet finished with 50 race days and 377 races. Average daily attendance reached 5,234, up 9 percent on 2025, and total handle came to about $39.7 million. Frosty View, a Minnesota-bred five-year-old, was Horse of the Meet for a second straight year, and Mac Robertson won his 17th training title at the Shakopee oval.
Betting outside the season
The racebook on the third floor opens daily, usually from about 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., with simulcast racing from tracks across the country and self-service machines before the windows staff up. Tellers are known as mutuel tellers and the self-service terminals as SAM machines; the pari-mutuel betting guide covers how the pools behind them work.
Minnesota’s law draws a hard line here. In 2024 the Racing Commission approved historical horse racing machines for both tracks, but the legislature banned them in a law that took effect on May 25, 2024. That leaves Canterbury Park with live racing, simulcasting and cards, and nothing like the historical horse racing parlours found in Kentucky.
Events at Canterbury Park
The Event Center hosts events outside the racing months. Listings for autumn 2026 include the MN Card Show on October 17 and 18, a Breeders’ Cup watch-and-wager weekend on October 30 and 31, a dinosaur exhibit, an arts and crafts festival, a kennel club show, pool tournaments and an MMA and Muay Thai night in December.
Race days bring their own events. The July 3 card with fireworks has traditionally drawn crowds above 15,000, and the track has staged corgi and basset hound races on summer weekends. Lucky’s Gift Shop on the first floor and the Game On Arcade, open during the meet, round out a racing afternoon for families.
Food, drink and nearby hotels
Chips Bar and Restaurant in the casino is open from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m., serving breakfast, artisan pizzas and wok dishes. During the meet the clubhouse levels open Homestretch for sandwiches and burgers, Canterbury Classics for pronto pups and cheese curds, and Bo Diddley’s Pub and Deli at track level. Outside food is not allowed.
The grounds have no hotel. The track’s partner list covers a Comfort Inn on Marschall Road and a Fairfield, a Holiday Inn, a Hampton and the Sandalwood along 12th Avenue East and Dean Lakes Boulevard, all in Shakopee. Overnight parking in the main lot is allowed, though long-term parking is not.
History of Canterbury Park
Canterbury Downs ran its first race on June 26, 1985. Ladbroke Racing bought it in 1990, attendance slumped, and the track closed in December 1992. Curtis and Randy Sampson revived it as Canterbury Park in January 1995. From 2012 to 2022, a $75 million purse deal with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, owners of Mystic Lake, replaced the slots campaign.
That agreement expired at the end of 2022 and was not renewed. Canterbury Park now depends on card revenue, a share of which the law sets aside for purses, and on its Canterbury Commons real estate projects. The state’s other card casino is Running Aces in Columbus; both are covered on the Minnesota racinos page.