Legend

How to read a casino glyph

A glyph has three kinds of marks: rays, a ring and dots. Each mark is drawn from one published fact about a Metro Vancouver casino and nothing else.

By the Glyph WorkshopChecked October 7, 2026

Rays: floor hours by day

A glyph has seven rays, one for each day of the week. Monday sits at the top, and the other days follow clockwise. A ray's length is the number of hours the floor is open on that calendar day, and a full ray is 24 hours.

Each day runs from 12 AM to 12 AM. Hours that run past midnight count toward the next day's ray.

Hastings Casino and Cascades Casino Delta draw shorter rays. Both floors open at 11 AM and close at 12 AM, or 2 AM on Friday and Saturday. Their hours after midnight on those two nights land on the Saturday and Sunday rays. Parq, Grand Villa, Starlight and Cascades Langley are open around the clock, so their glyphs show seven full rays. A longer ray means more open hours, nothing more.

Specimen: River Rock Casino Resort, the only glyph with all four rim marks; its rays are dashed because floor hours are not published.

The ring: live table hours

Inside the rays sits a ring with one arc per day. Each arc shows the hours of the live tables on that day. Where table hours are not published, the ring stays empty.

Parq, Grand Villa, Starlight and Cascades Langley publish no separate hours for their live tables, so their rings are empty. Hastings Casino lists no live table games at all; its floor is slot machines, and its ring is empty too. Cascades Casino Delta draws short arcs. Its tables open at 2 PM on Saturday and Sunday and at 4 PM on other days. They close at 12 AM, or 2 AM on Friday and Saturday.

Four dots at the rim

Four dots sit at the rim of each glyph. They stand for a poker room, a hotel on site or adjoining, a racebook or simulcast racing, and a transit hub. A transit hub is a SkyTrain station or bus exchange within 1 km in a straight line, taken from TransLink's GTFS feed.

A filled dot means the facts list the feature; a hollow dot means they do not. Across the nine casinos, 6 have a poker room and 5 have a hotel on site or adjoining. Racebook or simulcast racing appears at 4, and a transit hub within 1 km at 4.

Rays: hours the floor is open, one ray per day
Dashed ray: floor hours are not published
Inner ring: hours of the live tables
Dot: a poker room
Dot: a hotel on site or adjoining
Dot: a racebook or simulcast racing
Dot: a SkyTrain station or bus exchange within 1 km

Rim positions: poker upper right, hotel lower right, racebook lower left, transit upper left. A hollow mark means the facts list none.

Dashes: what is not published

A dashed ray means the floor hours are not published. Great Canadian Casino Vancouver and River Rock publish hours for their live tables but none for the whole floor, so all seven of their rays are dashed.

Elements Casino Surrey lists Sunday as 24 hours and Monday from 10 AM. Its hours do not say whether the floor stays open past midnight into Monday morning, so the first hours of the Monday ray are dashed. A dash marks a blank in the published facts. It does not mean the casino is closed.

Questions about the marks

Why is Monday at the top of the glyph?

The glyph treats Monday as the first day of the week. Its ray sits at the top, and the other days follow clockwise.

Does a hollow dot mean the casino has none?

A hollow dot means the facts list no such thing. It describes the published facts, not a visit to the casino.

Are holiday hours drawn on the glyphs?

Holidays are not drawn. Rays and rings follow the hours each casino publishes, in Pacific local time, and do not cover holidays. Holiday hours should be checked on the casino's own site.