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CALGARY - Calgary has more casinos per capita than Las Vegas.

That's the surprising fact a lot of people in Calgary like to point out, though no one is quite sure if it's true.

Most folks seem content though to gamble on it being fact here in gambling happy Alberta.

True or not -- a quick check with tourism officials in Las Vegas suggests you shouldn't bet on Calgary being the gambling capital -- there's still no disputing Calgary, followed closely by Edmonton, and Alberta as a whole are all the prolific pioneers in the Canadian casino business.

There are more than 30 casinos in oil rich Alberta, though it's hard to keep track as old ones close down and new ones get built.

I'm sitting with Doug Fraser, the media relations manager of the Calgary Stampede, when I point out something that is both surprising and an actual verifiable fact.

While Calgary has seven casinos, Toronto has none.

"Well, Toronto doesn't have a hockey team either," he says, venturing a bit of good-natured teasing of the reporter from back east.

Doug's office is next door to the Saddledome, which is of course the home of the city's beloved Calgary Flames.

After we chat a bit about the flooding on the St. John River -- Doug's sister lives on Fredericton's Hanwell Road -- the talk turns to a couple of other buildings just a horseshoe's throw from his office on the Calgary Stampede grounds.

I've come to talk about the Stampede Casino, one of Canada's oldest, which booms during the annual stampede but struggles to compete with newer, bigger, brighter gaming centres the rest of the year.

Turns out I'm two months too late and one month too early to talk about the Stampede Casino.

The Calgary Stampede sold its casino licence to Calgary West Hospitality in March, and the new owners are building a new structure to replace it just outside the main gates of Stampede Park.

The current Stampede Casino is in its last weeks and is showing its age inside, but even more outside, where its orange and brown siding dates it to the heyday of the Great Root Bear. The building looks for all the world like the world's largest curling rink and sure enough, Doug tells me it was, in fact, once just that.

Its replacement facility looks nowhere near complete, but there were literally scores of construction workers on site yesterday making sure it opens on time. You guessed it. It will be not just new, but bigger, better and brighter in every way, an absolutely grand building in the shadow of the Husky Tower, clad in red brick and looking like a modern take on one of the beautiful train stations Canadians built in rail's heyday.

A similar story to the Stampede Casino's unfolded in downtown Calgary three-and-a-half years ago, when the Elbow River Inn and Casino was torn down and replaced with the new Elbow River Casino. (The inn is out).

Remember that lucky stampede horseshoe being thrown around a couple paragraphs back? Throw it half as far and you have a sense of the distance separating the old Stampede Casino from the Elbow River operation.

Taking up a city block, it's slightly bigger than what's planned for Moncton, judging from its employee roster, 550 compared to an estimated 400 to be employed at Magnetic Hill.

With casino competition all around and a major, massive, modern convention and exhibition centre half a block away, the Elbow River is not positioned the way Moncton's forthcoming casino/hotel/convention centre will be.

Just three years in the new building (after 30 in their old facility) management is already rethinking the second floor meeting space they have..

"Entertainment's become more important to us," general manager Kevin Booth says. "We've just signed a contract with Yuk-Yuks and they'll be taking that space."

The casino is also doing other renovations and upgrades already, as it adjusts to Alberta's ever-changing casino marketplace.

The Elbow River, though beautiful, clean and friendly, is not in an area that's a tourist hotbed in any month of the year except Stampede July. Without a hotel, it has only relationships with other companies' hotels and advertising to pull in its patrons. Yet even on a Wednesday morning, there's a smattering of people steadily dropping by.

Despite his athletic and youthful good looks, Kevin tells me he's worked in the gaming industry for over 30 years, in Calgary and Vancouver and on west coast cruise ships.

He says change in the industry has been coming for a while now, but has really taken hold just in the past few years.

"It used to be a casino was just a gambling destination, but now they all have to offer more." Kevin says casinos are all going more upscale, offering restaurants and lounges and a variety of entertainments (a number of respected western Canadian musical acts will play the Elbow River Casino tonight through Saturday night, as happens every weekend at most Calgary casinos).

That variety is bringing a wider variety of patrons into casinos, something that despite the expenses involved in entertaining them, is obviously good for the business.

In Calgary at least, it's a business that just keeps growing and growing.