About this guide
How Up Close picks and marks photos
Every building photo on Up Close carries a free licence and a credit line naming its author. Every mark drawn over it states a fact that Valeria Ruiz checked on the venue's own pages and official sources.
By Valeria RuizChecked October 7, 2026
Where the photos come from
The building photos come from Wikimedia Commons. Each one is used under a free licence: CC BY, CC BY-SA or the Commons Attribution licence. A credit line goes with every photo and gives its author, its licence and the words "via Wikimedia Commons". Valeria Ruiz picks each one.
Cascades Casino Langley does not permit unauthorized photography, filming or live streaming. Up Close uses outside views of the buildings only, for every venue on the site. A venue without a freely licensed photo gets a drawing of Valeria instead.
Some photos are years old. The Cascades Casino Langley and River Rock Casino Resort photos were taken in 2006. The Elements Casino Surrey photo dates from July 2016, when the building was still called Elements Racetrack & Casino. The Parq photo is from October 2017. Signs, colours and entrances may have changed since.
Photos in use
How the marks are placed
The thin marks drawn over a photo state facts about the venue: parking, the nearest stop or station, a hotel on site, the level of a service inside. Each fact was checked on October 7, 2026, against the venue's own pages and official sources.
Valeria Ruiz places every mark by hand on the building in the frame. A mark does not show the exact position of a door unless the venue publishes that position.
Where official pages give different figures, the guide leaves the figure out. Grand Villa's pages give two different poker table counts, so neither count appears here. Hastings' pages give two different slot counts, and that number stays off the site as well.
How distances are measured
Distances to bus stops and SkyTrain stations are straight lines. Each one runs from the venue's OpenStreetMap position to TransLink's stop coordinates in its GTFS data. The feed used is valid from September 7, 2026 to January 3, 2027. These figures are not walking routes.
Parq is the exception for stations. Its distances to its two stations are the ones Parq publishes: 850 m to Stadium-Chinatown Station on the Expo Line and 800 m to Yaletown-Roundhouse Station on the Canada Line. Its nearest bus stop, northbound Smithe St at Expo Blvd, is about 119 m in a straight line.