Top 15 Most Famous Casinos in Britain

British casinos come in two entirely separate categories that happen to share a licence type. There are the Mayfair private clubs, several older than most countries’ gambling industries. And there are the large regional venues where the overwhelming majority of British casino gambling actually happens.

This list covers both, ranked by historical significance combined with current prominence. It isn’t a recommendation or a review. It’s an account of which venues matter and why.

Every casino named here operates under a Gambling Commission licence. If you’re planning to visit, check current opening arrangements, membership requirements and dress codes with the venue directly, because all three change.

Famous casinos in Britain at a glance

*Each entry is explained in full below.*

How we ranked the famous casinos in Britain

Ranked by historical significance, size and cultural prominence together. Venues that changed how British casinos operate rank above those that are merely large. Long-closed venues are excluded unless the name still trades.

The 15 famous casinos in Britain in detail

1. Crockfords, Mayfair

Founded in 1828 by William Crockford, a fishmonger who became one of the wealthiest men in London through gaming. It’s generally described as the oldest surviving casino brand in the world.

The club has moved, closed and reopened across nearly two centuries, and its current Mayfair operation bears little relation to the St James’s Street original beyond the name. It remains one of the most exclusive gaming rooms in Britain.

It’s also the venue at the centre of the most significant British court case on advantage play and cheating, which reached the Supreme Court and was decided in the casino’s favour.

2. The Clermont Club, Berkeley Square

John Aspinall opened it in 1962 in a William Kent townhouse, and it’s probably the most storied gambling room in British history.

Its membership in the 1960s contained an extraordinary concentration of the British establishment, and it’s permanently associated with the disappearance of Lord Lucan in 1974.

What it really represents is a brief window. After the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 made gaming clubs legal, and before the Gaming Act 1968 imposed serious regulation, high-stakes private gambling in London was legal, fashionable and almost entirely unsupervised.

3. Aspinalls, Curzon Street

Also Aspinall, and the surviving half of his operation. He had been running illegal high-stakes games in London houses before the 1960 Act let him move the whole thing into legitimacy.

It still operates as a private members’ casino in Mayfair.

Aspinall himself remains one of the more remarkable figures in British gambling history, mostly because of the parallel career founding zoos.

4. The Ritz Club, Piccadilly

A casino beneath one of London’s best-known hotels, in a room originally designed as a restaurant, and among the most visually distinctive gaming spaces in Britain.

It’s been associated with very high-stakes play and has appeared in reporting about international high rollers more than almost any other British venue.

5. Les Ambassadeurs, Mayfair

A long-established private club in a Georgian townhouse on Hamilton Place, and one of the small group of London casinos serving international high-stakes players for decades.

Like most of the Mayfair clubs, its significance isn’t its size. These venues handle a tiny fraction of British casino visits and a wildly disproportionate share of British casino turnover.

6. The Hippodrome Casino, Leicester Square

The largest casino in London by floor space, opened in 2012 in a Grade II listed building that had been a circus venue, a theatre and a nightclub across more than a century.

It’s the clearest example of the modern British casino model: gaming floors combined with bars, restaurants and live entertainment, open to the public rather than to members, sited where the footfall is.

It’s also the venue most visitors to London actually walk into, which makes it more representative of British casino gambling than any Mayfair club on this list.

7. The Empire Casino, Leicester Square

Housed in a former cinema on the north side of Leicester Square, and one of the largest and busiest casinos in the capital.

Together with the Hippodrome it defines the central London casino experience for the great majority of visitors. Large, public, and organised around slots and electronic games rather than private rooms.

8. The Grosvenor Victoria, Edgware Road

Universally known as The Vic, and the most important poker venue in Britain. It has hosted major tournaments for decades and is the room most associated with the British poker scene.

Its significance is completely disproportionate to its size or décor. If British poker has a home, this is it.

9. The Palm Beach, Mayfair

A Berkeley Street club in a distinguished building, part of the small cluster of Mayfair casinos operating at a scale and at stakes unlike anything else in the country.

10. The Playboy Club London, Park Lane

The original opened in 1966 and became one of the most commercially successful casinos in Europe within a few years, combining a licensed floor with the Playboy brand at the peak of its cultural reach.

It closed in 1981 after losing its gaming licence, an early example of British regulation removing a major operator outright. The name returned to Park Lane in 2011 under different operation.

11. Resorts World Birmingham

The closest thing Britain has to an integrated resort. A casino combined with a hotel, cinema, outlet shopping and restaurants, next to the NEC.

It represents the model Las Vegas perfected and Britain has largely declined to adopt, for regulatory and planning reasons rather than commercial ones. Its existence is the exception that demonstrates the rule.

12. Genting Club Star City, Birmingham

One of the larger regional casinos in Britain, inside a substantial leisure complex, and a good illustration of where British casino gambling actually takes place.

The Mayfair clubs get the coverage. Venues like this get the visitors.

13. Napoleons Casinos, Sheffield and Leeds

A long-running independent northern group, which is unusual in a sector dominated by two or three large operators.

Regional casinos of this kind have historically worked as late-opening social venues as much as gambling ones. That’s a distinctly British characteristic and quite unlike the American model.

14. Alea, Glasgow and Nottingham

Modern large-format regional casinos built after the Gambling Act 2005 permitted a new generation of venues.

They reflect the current design consensus: open floors, extensive electronic gaming, food and drink integrated rather than incidental, and no membership barrier at the door.

15. Grosvenor Casino Blackpool

Included for what it represents rather than its scale. Blackpool has been Britain’s most significant popular gambling town for well over a century, and a casino there sits inside a tradition of seaside amusement predating every other venue here except Crockfords.

The town has repeatedly been proposed as the site of a large-scale British casino resort, and it has repeatedly not happened. Which is a fair summary of British casino policy generally.

Two industries, one licence

The gap between the top of this list and the bottom is enormous, and it has nothing to do with quality.

Mayfair private clubs serve a small number of very high-stakes international players. Turnover per visitor is unlike anything else in British gambling, and the business is closer to private banking than to entertainment.

Regional casinos serve a large number of people spending modest amounts on slots, electronic roulette and a night out. That’s where the overwhelming majority of British casino visits happen.

Both hold casino licences from the same regulator. Almost nothing else about them is comparable.

Why Britain has no Las Vegas

The Gambling Act 2005 originally envisaged regional casinos on a substantially larger scale, and the plan was abandoned before any were built.

What Britain got instead is a large number of medium-sized venues, tightly limited in machine numbers and floor size, plus a handful of Mayfair clubs operating on an entirely different model. Resorts World Birmingham is the closest approach to an integrated resort, and it isn’t close.

The land-based sector has also contracted considerably as gambling moved online, which makes a large-scale British casino resort less likely now than it was twenty years ago, not more.

Conclusion: what the famous casinos in Britain tell you

The list splits cleanly at entry ten, and the split is the whole story. Above it, ten London venues, five of them within a few streets of each other in Mayfair, several with two-century histories and memberships drawn from the British establishment. Below it, five regional venues that between them see more visitors in a month than the Mayfair clubs see in years.

Almost every article written about British casinos covers the top half and ignores the bottom. That’s understandable, because Lord Lucan and a Supreme Court cheating case make better reading than a leisure complex next to the NEC. It’s also why most people’s mental image of a British casino is wrong. The actual British casino is the Hippodrome or Star City: public, unglamorous, organised around electronic gaming, and requiring nothing of you at the door.

Worth knowing if you’re planning to visit one. The Mayfair clubs on this list are largely not available to you, and the venues that are available operate on entirely different terms. Check the dress code and membership position with the venue itself, because the two halves of this list answer that question very differently.

Famous casinos in Britain: frequently asked questions

What is the oldest casino in Britain?

Crockfords, founded on St James’s Street in 1828 by William Crockford. It’s generally described as the oldest surviving casino brand in the world, though it has moved and changed ownership many times.

What is the biggest casino in London?

The Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square is the largest by floor space, occupying a Grade II listed building that has previously been a circus, a theatre and a nightclub.

Do UK casinos still require membership?

Not generally. The twenty-four-hour membership rule from the Gaming Act 1968 was abolished by the Gambling Act 2005. Some private Mayfair clubs still operate on a membership basis by choice.

Where is the best-known poker room in Britain?

The Grosvenor Victoria on Edgware Road, known as The Vic, has hosted major tournaments for decades and is the venue most associated with British poker.

Are there casino resorts in the UK like Las Vegas?

Not really. Resorts World Birmingham is the closest, combining a casino with a hotel, cinema and shopping. Plans for larger regional casinos under the Gambling Act 2005 were abandoned.

Do I need to dress up for a UK casino?

Rarely now. Most regional and central London casinos have relaxed or removed dress codes, while a small number of private Mayfair clubs maintain them. Check the venue directly.

Responsible gambling in the famous casinos in Britain

Gambling should be treated as paid entertainment and never as a way to make or recover money. Set deposit and loss limits before you play. Free, confidential support is available at BeGambleAware.org and on the National Gambling Helpline, 0808 8020 133. GAMSTOP lets you self-exclude from every UK licensed online operator at once.

Sources

• Gambling Commission: public register of licensed premises and operators
• Venue operator published information

legislation.gov.uk: Gaming Act 1968, Gambling Act 2005