Royalton Riviera Cancun does have a casino, and three things come with it

In order of practical importance the three conditions are: it is billed separately, it opens at six in the evening, and you are not in Cancun. None of them appears in the “hotels with casinos” listicles that rank first for this search.

The sign says Cancun; the address says Puerto Morelos

The resort markets itself as Riviera Cancun, and Google even gives it a Cancun postal code, but it sits on Federal Highway 307 in the municipality of Puerto Morelos, roughly halfway between Cancun airport and Playa del Carmen. Travel agencies file it under Puerto Morelos or Riviera Maya, and that is the correct label.

• From Cancun airport it is under half an hour down the 307. See getting in from the airport.
• To the downtown Cancun rooms, about 35 kilometres. That is not an after-dinner stroll.
• To Playa del Carmen, about 37 kilometres in a straight line — the same trip in the other direction.
• In the town of Puerto Morelos there is no gaming room at all: a category sweep for twenty kilometres around returned zero.

Why your wristband stops at the casino door

The chain’s sentence is literal — the casino operates at an additional charge and is not included in the all-inclusive rate — and it is not a seasonal policy. Article 11 of the federal gaming regulation forbids a licensed room from extending credit to a bettor, and a prepaid package works as credit; article 10 requires the betting itself to be conducted in national currency. The practical version: bring pesos and change them beforehand, because there is no conversion inside. More in dollars or pesos.

What neither the chain nor the resort publishes

• Whether non-guests are admitted. The chain does not say, and the casino is not mentioned in day-pass descriptions either.
• A dress code. Not published, though one exists: internal rules are approved by the Secretariat, and article 5 section VII allows a venue to refuse anyone who does not follow them.
• Minimum bet, payment methods and drinks. Not published.
• The number of machines. Several news items mention around fifty; the chain gives no figure, so neither do we.

• Minimum age is 18, not 21 — article 5, section I. Foreign visitors are asked for a passport; see ID and age.
• Nobody may enter under the influence (article 5, section II), and checking that is the venue’s legal duty.
• Tax: Quintana Roo charges 10 % on what the player stakes — not on winnings — and the federal government withholds 1 % of a prize. The “21 %” that circulates in forums does not apply here.

If what you wanted was a casino you can walk into

Casino del Mar is a resort room: you reach it through the lobby, and its public is the house guests. To walk in off the street you have to drive the 307. Northbound, the nearest street-level rooms are downtown Cancun — Jubilee, open around the clock — and Casino Macao in the Hotel Zone. Southbound, Winpot and Riviera Grand in Playa del Carmen.

A last note of the kind you only notice once you are inside. The machines in a physical room have no practice mode: you cannot see how a game behaves before you put money in it, or compare two titles without playing both. Online that free mode exists, costs nothing to look at and does not wait until six in the evening — and the operators holding a current licence from the Dirección General de Juegos y Sorteos are public and checkable. Two caveats that matter to a visitor, though: Caliente’s terms state that using the site from inside the United States is prohibited and that winnings will not be paid in that case, and a peso withdrawal by bank transfer needs a Mexican account number, which a tourist does not have.