The Casinos of London

In the past, most casinos are London were small clubs. They had a few large ones, but most of them were the size of a very large living room with mostly Roulette tables and some Black Jack, with a small dining area and common area. Slots were barely used and in most cases, the whole experiences were rather dull.

The big casinos that I visited in the ’90s were Palm Beach Casino which has the same size today but is a pretty nice and cool casino with good staff and fun ambiance. In the middle of Mayfair and have a great four-deck Black Jack game.

Today in 2019, they have made some small changes from the early years, but they still have their four decks Black Jack, which have probably the best rules in the World right now for serious game play. The Vic, the old Victoria casino is one of the larger ones from the past and still is one of the nicer casinos with spaces that do not feel cramped on a Friday night. Today they have the best poker set up with large tournament fields and probably the best cash game in the western European hemisphere.

The other casinos that rank pretty good in my view are:

• The Hippodrome
• Empire Casino
• Playboy Casino
• Aspers Westfield
• Palm Beach Casino
• The Victoria

The Hippodrome

When you enter the hippodrome it feels like a huge playground and you get a pretty good vibe directly and the building is so large you really don’t know which floor to enter. But after a while, you realize it’s not that big and you can move around easily in-between the main floors for gaming action or if you want to play Poker in the top floor of the Casino. It’s a very decent gaming floor, but it’s sad, they use automatic shufflers on most Black Jacks. Otherwise, there are many Roulette tables and they have a secluded section for high stakes Baccarat.

Empire Casino

It is a very large casino not on Gamstop and the lobby feels bigger than the game floor actually, which is a kind of a strange waste of space. But the game floor is filled with action and they do have a very good number of good slots games.

Playboy Casino

Since I am serious Black Jack player this venue is also really good. But they do have a dress code which sometimes feels annoying. They do have a very nice atmosphere for table games and do not feel cramped at all even when busy. They do sometimes have a membership fee that is pretty high, but you do get a test month and if you have decent amount of tracked play you can get it for free.

Aspers Westfield

I have never played table games in Aspers, but this casino is one of the largest in London and actually has an American feel to the atmosphere and you can definitely tell that they focus on American large video slots. I like the place and it’s nice to walk around and looking at the different machines. They have a very good poker section and pretty good cash game action. They only thing that is negative about the place is the fact it is very far from downtown London and Mayfair.

In my next article, I will write about the online casinos of the UK.

See you soon.

Gaming Consultant and Games Expert
Master of Science Casino Marketing, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Daniel Sahlin is highly respected for his expertise within casino and gambling. Daniel have been studying Science Casino Marketing at University of Nevada in Las Vegas and has been seen frequently within casino regulation debates. See his stories for Casinomir here.