The best casino in London for a trip that mixes sightseeing, culture and a few hours at the tables is the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square. Entry is free, it opens 24 hours a day, no membership is required, and it occupies a Grade II listed theatre that opened in 1900. You can walk in off the street, play for an hour, eat, and be back at the National Gallery in ten minutes.
If you have never played casino games before, it can make sense to get familiar with the basic mechanics online before visiting a venue in person. A Gamerules guide to online casinos can help you understand how common games work, what the usual betting options look like, and what to expect before you sit down at a live table.
That last point is the whole argument. London has dozens of licensed casinos, and the ones a visitor wants are the ones that fit inside a day of doing other things. Most guides rank them by chandelier count. Rank them instead by whether you can get through the door, and the list shortens fast.
Why the Hippodrome is the one to book first
The Hippodrome earns the top spot because it removes every barrier a foreign visitor runs into. There is no admission charge, no membership scheme to join at the door, and no closing time. The venue sits on Cranbourn Street, directly above Exit 2 of Leicester Square Underground station, which puts it a short walk from Chinatown, Soho and Trafalgar Square.
The building is the reason to go even if you never place a bet. It opened on 16 January 1900 under Edward Moss as a circus theatre with a 100,000 gallon water tank in which elephants and polar bears swam. Harry Houdini performed there. It staged Britain’s first ever production of Swan Lake. In the 1950s it became the Talk of the Town, home to Judy Garland’s famous London residency, and it later spent years as a Peter Stringfellow nightclub before the Thomas family reopened it as a casino on 13 July 2012.
What that history means in practice is that you gamble inside a preserved Edwardian auditorium rather than a windowless box. Four floors carry the gaming, spread across three separate casinos, alongside the largest dedicated poker floor in the capital. Electronic roulette and blackjack terminals run from 20p to £50 a chip and the slots from 50p to £5, so the stakes suit a curious tourist as easily as a regular.
There are nine bars, the Heliot Steak House looking down over the Grand Casino floor, Chop Chop by Four Seasons on the lower ground floor, and the Gods rooftop terrace spread across three levels with room for 150 people. Magic Mike Live runs in the theatre space upstairs. Treat the casino as one floor of a building you would visit anyway and the value of the evening changes completely.
The trade-off is atmosphere. The Hippodrome is loud, busy and open to everyone, which is exactly what makes it accessible and exactly what will disappoint anyone hoping for a hushed room and a dinner jacket. That experience still exists in London, but it is much harder to reach than the guides suggest.
The famous names that are no longer open
Several casinos still recommended by high-ranking London guides have closed. Crockfords, founded on Curzon Street in 1828 and the oldest of Mayfair’s clubs, shut permanently in October 2023 under Genting’s ownership. The Ritz Club, in the basement of the Ritz hotel on Piccadilly, closed in 2020 and never reopened after the pandemic shutdown. The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square went in 2018.
Check the publication date on any London casino list before you plan around it. A page that names Crockfords as a current option has not been touched in three years, which tells you something about the rest of its advice.
Where to find the biggest gaming floor in Britain
The largest casino in the UK by floor space sits on the third level of the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, and it changed name in 2025. Formerly Aspers, it is now Genting Casino Stratford, following Genting’s purchase of the venue out of the Aspers administration and a relaunch in the summer of 2025 backed by a seven-figure refurbishment.
At 65,000 square feet it dwarfs anything in the West End, with roughly 150 slot machines, banks of electronic terminals, a large poker room and the first on-site betting shop in a British casino. It is open around the clock, entry is free, and Stratford station puts you a few stops from Liverpool Street on the Central line.
The reason to go east is the surroundings rather than the tables. The casino sits at the edge of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, so a visit pairs naturally with the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the aquatics centre and the London Stadium. Nobody would call the Westfield setting glamorous, but the floor is the biggest in the country.
The Empire, if Leicester Square is your base
The Empire Casino, run by Metropolitan Gaming, faces Leicester Square directly and works as a second option when the Hippodrome is packed on a Friday night. It also opens 24 hours, charges nothing to enter and asks for no membership, though photo identification is required after 9pm and at any hour if you look under 25.
Its distinguishing feature is the Icon balcony bar overlooking the square, one of the few places in the West End where you can watch Leicester Square from above with a drink in hand. The Kings sports bar downstairs runs major fixtures on big screens, which matters during a tournament summer.
The Vic, for anyone who came to play poker
Poker travellers head to Grosvenor Casino The Victoria on Edgware Road, known universally as the Vic. It reopened in July 2025 after a £15 million refurbishment, the largest single investment Grosvenor Casinos has made in one venue, which delivered a modernised gaming floor, a new outdoor terrace and a rebuilt poker room with 24 permanent tables and a live stream setup for final tables.
The Vic hosts the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, one of Europe’s longest-running tournament series, and runs cash games daily. It is a short walk from Hyde Park and Marble Arch, so it fits a day spent around Oxford Street rather than the West End.
Mayfair private clubs, and what you can realistically get into
Mayfair still holds the money, but most of it now sits behind membership. Les Ambassadeurs at 5 Hamilton Place, founded in 1941 and the club that appeared in Dr. No and A Hard Day’s Night, remains a members-only operation for premium players. Wynn Mayfair at 27 to 28 Curzon Street was Crown London Aspinalls until Wynn Resorts completed its acquisition and renamed it on 5 June 2025. Trade reports describe around 20 gaming tables across a main floor, private salons and a rooftop terrace.
For a visitor without an introduction, treat these as architecture rather than destinations. Walk Curzon Street and Hamilton Place, look at the Georgian townhouses, and play somewhere that will let you in. Metropolitan Mayfair, formerly the Park Lane Club, sits in the same district and operates a free membership scheme rather than a vetted one, which makes it the realistic Mayfair option.
Do you need membership or ID to enter a London casino?
No membership is required at any public London casino, and has not been since 1 September 2007. The Gambling Act 2005 removed the old 24 hour membership rule that forced casinos to operate as private clubs, which is what turned them into premises the public can walk into. Private members’ clubs like Les Ambassadeurs chose to keep their vetting, so they are the exception rather than the rule.
You must be 18 or over, and you should carry a passport or photo driving licence. British venues operate Challenge 25, meaning staff ask for identification from anyone who looks under 25, and several sites request it from every guest after 9pm regardless. Dress codes are looser than the films suggest. Smart casual clears the door almost everywhere, though ripped clothing, tracksuits and sportswear are commonly refused.
Are casino winnings taxed in the UK?
Gambling winnings are not taxable for players in the United Kingdom, whatever the amount and whatever the game. The tax falls on the operators through gross profits duty rather than on the person holding the chips, which is a meaningful difference for visitors from France, Spain or the United States, where the position is not the same. Identification checks still apply at the cashier, so carry your passport if you expect to change a large sum.
Playing without spoiling the trip
Set the budget before you walk in and treat it as the price of the evening rather than an investment. British casinos are required by law to offer self-exclusion, and the SENSE scheme run by the National Casino Forum lets anyone exclude from every licensed land-based casino in Great Britain through a single application. The National Gambling Helpline, operated by GamCare, is free on 0808 8020 133 and answers 24 hours a day.
The Hippodrome stays the pick because it costs nothing to enter, never closes, and hands you a listed Edwardian theatre, a rooftop terrace and a steakhouse whether the roulette goes your way or not. Which side of London appeals to you more, the open door in Leicester Square or the closed one in Mayfair?
