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HIPPODROME CASINO


The casinos of England are not a lot of fun because they weren’t allowed to be under the old Gaming Act


that kind of thing much better than we do. We also have a specialist to run the cabaret, because it is also a specialised field. From the customer’s point of view we want them to come in, get an excellent meal in a fantastic atmosphere, or have a drink in a great bar, or go to watch the cabaret, a late night comedy act, without even leaving to go to the casino. But from our point of view it gets them into the building, there’s a real crossover of business – it’s the way casinos work internationally. We can never be Vegas, because obviously we are in London, but we can be an international-style casino with many different offerings. The casinos of England are not a lot of fun because


they weren’t allowed to be under the old Gaming Act. With all the barriers to actually going into a casino, it’s amazing anyone went in at all. Not so long ago we still had the 48-hour rule between joining as a member and being able to go in; no advertising, no promotions, no electronic gaming, no live entertainment etc and they have all been deregulated. Casinos should be fun places where adult men and women can go for a night out. The provinces have been able to change better than London in terms of what a casino can offer. London casinos in other locations are suffering and will suffer more as bigger casinos in better locations come along. The smoking ban has exacerbated the whole problem for those casinos too. Casinos like the Broadway Casino in Birmingham are good places for adults to go, many casinos outside London are custom built for purpose and it shows. When you really bore down into the subject there are very few places where ‘grown ups’ can go out for the evening for a safe night out. Adults go to restaurants, theatre, cinema… there’s very few places where adults can go and talk, have fun and enjoy a range of activities. We can certainly provide that.


CI: Has acquiring the building nextdoor affected


your planned opening date of September 2011? ST: Only by a number of weeks. We’re taking the building from the first floor upwards, so we don’t


24 JANUARY 2011


have any of the groundwork issues we’ve had with the Hippodrome. The timetable dovetails very well; we’ll have stripped the building nextdoor by the time the last of the basement slabs is laid in the Hippodrome. As we come up with the structure, we will be able to fit it out in the same timetable, so there’s minimal difference. We hope to open the doors in late October or early November 2011.


CI: Are you on schedule? ST: Yes we are. The difficult bit was going


downward, and the fear of finding something archeologically interesting! We had a representative from the Museum of London checking there was nothing of interest as we excavated the site; she did find what she thought was a World War II bomb which turned out to be a piece of banister! We didn’t expect to find anything underneath us


but it’s always a risk; that’s where a development can suddenly get very expensive and time-consuming.


CI: How will you accommodate smokers? ST: On the top floor we will have a double-deck smoking terrace, with some outdoor gaming on the lower level too.


CI: Are all of your suppliers in place? ST: We’re getting there. Everything that we need to


have sorted out by this point, is sorted out – all of the long lead-time items like elevators, safes, for example. Soft furnishings and gaming equipment will be brought in at the appropriate time. The interior décor scheme is complete – we know what is going where, though we haven’t sourced every chair yet! The gaming side is evolving and we’ve made a


number of changes to our approach as we’ve seen new equipment become available. As you know there’s huge potential in electronic gaming which is not really being satisfied in English casinos, largely because casinos don’t have the space for a really good electronic offering. The way the market seems to be


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