History of the site
From raceway to Hard Rock: sixty-four years on Albion Road
One address, four identities and, as of 2026, the close of the thing it was originally built for. This is the sequence, in order, with the documented dates.
Timeline
The site, decade by decade
1962A harness track opens on Albion Road
The racetrack that would become known as Rideau Carleton Raceway opens in Ottawa’s rural south end. For decades the address means one thing to the city: standardbred racing, on a site with far more parking than neighbours.
LaterSlot machines arrive under the provincial lottery corporation
The site becomes a slots hall operated under the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), trading as OLG Slots at Rideau Carleton Raceway. Racing and gaming share the property, a pattern repeated at tracks across the province.
May 2017The province picks an operator for the Ottawa bundle
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) selects HR Ottawa, LP as the service provider for the Ottawa Area Gaming Bundle under a 20-year Casino Operating and Services Agreement. The partnership behind it is HR Ottawa, LP — a partnership of HR LP Investor Inc., owned by Hard Rock International, and RCR Investor Inc., owned by Rideau Carleton Raceway Holdings Limited. In practice the private operator takes over the day-to-day running and the assets of the slots hall; the province keeps the conduct-and-manage role.
3 July 2025The hotel opens and the site takes its current name
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Ottawa opens: 150 guest rooms including 22 suites, an expanded gaming floor, restaurants and a concert hall, in a development put at $350 million and described at the time as Canada’s first fully integrated Hard Rock resort. From this date the property has a hotel for the first time, and the older names stop being correct.
2 April 2026The end of harness racing is announced
The venue and Ontario Racing announce jointly that the racing programme concludes with the 2026 season, ending roughly 64 years of harness racing at the site. The casino, the hotel and the concert hall are explicitly unaffected. This is the single most important date for anyone reading an older Ottawa guide.
Each heading opens on its own; the button above opens and closes all five at once once scripting is available. Nothing is hidden from readers without it — the entries are ordinary collapsible sections, and everything in them is also summarised below.
The closure
What ending the racing actually means
The announcement of 2 April 2026 was not a closure of the property. It was the end of one programme on it. Standardbred racing had been part of this address for roughly 64 years, since the track opened in 1962, and it finishes with the 2026 season. The gaming floor, the hotel and the concert hall keep operating.
For a visitor the practical effect is simple and slightly sad. The reason to come here used to include an evening at the rail. It no longer does. If you find a blog post, a listicle or an itinerary that promises a night of racing with dinner, check its date: anything written before April 2026 was true when it was published and is not true now.
It also changes what the site is. A racetrack with slots attached is a different kind of place from a hotel and concert venue with a casino floor. The second is what stands there today, and the guide is written for that.
Names
Why the old names still matter
The property has been published under several names: Rideau Carleton Raceway, OLG Slots at Rideau Carleton Raceway and, later, Rideau Carleton Casino, and now its current one. Search engines still hold pages under every one of them, and a surprising number of directory entries have simply had a new name typed over old facts.
The test this guide applies is easy to copy. If a page tells you there is racing, it is out of date. If it gives a table count, it is going beyond what the operator publishes. If it mentions a pool or a spa, it has confused this property with another one. And if it quotes a phone number other than 613-822-8668, ring the venue rather than the page.