New York City to Yonkers: 16.0 miles straight-line
The closest documented casino venue to New York City is Yonkers Raceway & Empire City Casino, at a straight-line distance of 16.0 miles from the city's coordinates of 40.7128, -74.0061. Road distance is longer than straight-line distance, and this article does not publish driving mileage or travel time.
That opening figure is the single most important number in this article, and it is a great-circle measurement, not a road measurement. A reader planning a trip should treat it as a floor, never as a route length.
Why straight-line miles understate any real trip
A straight-line distance connects two coordinate points through whatever lies between them: water, hills, buildings, state lines. A road cannot do that. Roads follow river crossings, avoid terrain, bend around developed areas, and connect through interchanges that add length in ways no straight line can capture.
Between New York City and the documented venues in this article, the gap between straight-line and road distance is shaped by several factors. The Hudson River separates New York from points west and north, forcing crossings at fixed points. The Lehigh Valley and Pocono Mountains add elevation changes that flatten road alignments into longer curves. State boundaries between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania create routing decisions that have no straight-line equivalent.
None of those factors appears in a straight-line figure. That is why this article labels every distance explicitly and never converts one into a driving estimate.
Documented straight-line distances from New York City
The table below lists every venue-to-New York City pair supplied in the reference data for this article. Each row is a great-circle measurement between the city's coordinates and the venue's documented coordinates.
| Reference point | Straight-line miles | Measurement type |
|---|---|---|
| Yonkers Raceway & Empire City Casino | 16.0 | great-circle |
| Parx Casino and Racing (Bensalem, PA) | 64.6 | great-circle |
| Wind Creek Bethlehem (Bethlehem, PA) | 71.2 | great-circle |
| Bethlehem (same venue, alternate entry) | 71.2 | great-circle |
| Mount Airy Casino Resort (Mount Pocono, PA) | 74.1 | great-circle |
| Monticello (documented venue) | 75.6 | great-circle |
| Valley Forge (documented venue) | 85.5 | great-circle |
| Ocean Casino (documented venue) | 95.8 | great-circle |
| Showboat (documented venue) | 95.9 | great-circle |
| Delaware Park (documented venue) | 112.1 | great-circle |
Two rows list the same coordinate pair because the reference data documents Wind Creek Bethlehem under two aliases. The 71.2-mile figure is identical for both because the coordinates are identical.
Where these venues sit relative to New York City
New York City is at 40.7128 north latitude and 74.0061 west longitude. The documented venues nearest to it fall in two directions.
Yonkers sits north of the city, at 40.918021, -73.86529, just across the city's northern border in New York State. Its latitude is higher than the city's, which places it north; its longitude is less negative, which places it east. That combination puts Yonkers northeast of the city's coordinate point.
The Pennsylvania venues sit west and slightly south or north of the city depending on their exact coordinates. Parx, at 40.1186, -74.953, is south and west. Wind Creek Bethlehem, at 40.6148, -75.3591, is west and very slightly south. Mount Airy, at 41.1133, -75.3217, is west and north. All three are in Pennsylvania, across the New Jersey corridor that separates New York from that state.
| Venue | State | Direction from NYC coordinates |
|---|---|---|
| Yonkers | New York | northeast |
| Parx | Pennsylvania | southwest |
| Wind Creek Bethlehem | Pennsylvania | west, slightly south |
| Mount Airy | Pennsylvania | northwest |
Directional statements here are limited to what coordinate comparison supports. No route, highway, or turn-by-turn instruction is supplied in the reference data, so none appears in this article.
If your question starts with "from me" or "from my location"
The venue's position is fixed. Your position is not. This article cannot measure a distance from an unspecified starting point, and it will not guess one. What it can do is anchor the venue to a documented coordinate and give you a set of fixed reference distances you can compare against your own location.
To measure from where you are, take your own coordinates or your city's coordinates and compare them against the venue's coordinates shown above. The difference in latitude and longitude tells you the direction. The straight-line distance between any two coordinate pairs is a standard calculation you can run with any mapping tool. What that tool will also show you is the road route, which is the number that matters for travel.
Do not convert the straight-line figures in this article into a driving estimate by adding a fixed percentage. The gap between straight-line and road distance varies by terrain, water crossings, and road network density. For New York City, the gap is typically substantial because of the Hudson River and the dense, indirect road network of the metro area.
What the reference data does and does not contain
The reference data for this article documents 481 casino venues in total. It is not a complete list of casinos in any city, county, state, or country. This article can tell you how many venues are documented here and measured to New York City: 318. It cannot tell you the total number of casinos near New York City, because no such census exists in the reference data.
For a complete current list of casinos in New York State, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, the reader should consult the state gaming regulator for the relevant jurisdiction. Each state maintains its own list of licensed and operating venues, and that list changes as properties open, close, or rebrand.
Facility figures for the closest documented venues
Several of the venues nearest to New York City carry documented facility figures in the reference data. These figures describe a documented point in time, not today. Casinos expand, renovate, and change machine counts, so any figure should be treated as historical unless the reader confirms it against the property's current published materials.
| Venue | Slot machines | Table games | Hotel rooms | Gaming square feet | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yonkers | 7,500 | not documented | not documented | 120,000 | 1899 |
| Parx | 3,200 | not documented | 300 | 30,000 | January 11, 2018 |
| Wind Creek Bethlehem | 3,000 | 180 | not documented | not documented | May 22, 2009 |
| Mount Airy | 1,800 | 70 | 284 | not documented | not documented |
Ownership is documented for three of these venues. Yonkers is owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM Resorts International. Parx is owned and operated by Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment. Wind Creek Bethlehem is owned and operated by Wind Creek Hospitality, an entity of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Ownership and branding of casino properties change through sales and rebrands, so these names should be confirmed before relying on them.
What to confirm before you go
This article gives you fixed geography and documented facility figures. Everything that changes day to day lives elsewhere. Before travelling to any of these venues, confirm the following through the property's own published channels: current operating hours, current machine and table counts, whether the hotel is open and what its current room categories are, parking availability and any associated cost, and whether the venue's name or operator has changed since the reference data was compiled.
The authoritative channel for each item is the venue's own website, its booking page, or its guest services line. No URL, phone number, or street address is published in this article. The reader should search for the venue by its documented name and confirm the details on the property's own pages.
What commonly catches people out is assuming that a straight-line distance is a trip length. It never is. The second common error is treating a documented facility figure as current. Casinos change machine counts and room inventories regularly, and a figure from a reference source is a point-in-time snapshot, not a live count.
FAQ
What is the closest casino to New York City in straight-line terms?
Yonkers Raceway & Empire City Casino is the closest documented venue, at 16.0 miles straight-line from New York City's coordinates. It sits in Yonkers, New York, northeast of the city. Road distance is longer, and this article does not publish driving mileage or travel time.
Why does this article not give driving distances or times?
The reference data contains only great-circle distances between documented coordinates. Road distance depends on route, water crossings, traffic, and road network geometry, none of which is supplied. Stating a driving time or mileage without that data would be an invented number.
How can I measure the distance from my own location to one of these venues?
Take your own coordinates or city coordinates, compare them against the venue's coordinates shown in this article, and use a mapping tool to calculate both straight-line and road distance. The venue's position is fixed; your position is not, so no article can answer "from me" without knowing where you are.
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