STYLE AND TRAVEL
Chips with everything
Casinos, like Take That and TB, are making a comeback, says Oscar Humphries Iturned 26 last week. In this age of mobile phones, text messages and emails, the birthday card is going the way of the dodo. I received a single birthday card in the post. It came in a large blue envelope, the kind of envelope that might contain a cheque. Inside ten signatures wished me ‘Happy Birthday from the Ritz Club’. Birthday cards from one’s casino have to feature somewhere on a ‘Do you have a gambling problem?’ leaflet. After ‘Have you lied to loved ones about your gambling?’ and before ‘Have you ever sold an organ to fund your gambling?’ Suddenly everyone’s gone mad for gaming. Four years ago there were 1,700 betting shops within the M25 — now there are well over 2,300.
Bookies used to be slightly seedy establishments, filled with men getting nervous when ‘Satan’s Bride’ stumbled at the post. To go down to the bookies was a furtive exercise. No longer. Betting shops are now, like Starbucks and Ann Summers, an accepted part of highstreet geography. Casinos are also multiplying, erupting in unlikely towns such as Great Yarmouth, Hull, Newham, Middlesbrough, Solihull, Leeds, Southampton and picturesque Milton Keynes.
Gambling was once a pastime for the idle rich or the hopelessly addicted, for Saudis on blackjack binges or grey, fidgety men hoping that their number would come up thus saving both their kneecaps and their marriages. Young men like me with an Oyster card played pontoon at home. Casinos — like Take That and TB — have suddenly made an unexpected comeback. They are an alternative to clubbing; an alco-pop free zone. More sophisticated and a lot less sweaty.
Mayfair houses casinos that feel more Monte Carlo than Blackpool, more Daniel Craig than David Brent. Aspinalls, Fifty, and the Ritz Club are all attracting younger members through events and atmosphere. Fifty is more like a nightclub than a casino — with loud music, slick lighting and a dedicated dance floor downstairs. One of the reasons casinos are keen to attract younger members is that their proprietors realise that the presence of attractive boys and girls acts as bait for high rollers. For me, much of the appeal of gambling lies in the concentration it requires. One is entirely focused on the cards or the chips or the horse. Time stands still. All thoughts of mortgage repayments and call-centre rage recede to the back of one’s mind. Gambling addicts — when their illness reaches its terrifying and destructive zenith no longer care about winning or losing. The money’s not the point. It’s the adrenaline rush. Ironically, losing has a far more powerful and long-lasting effect on the senses than winning, and it is this feeling that they ultimately chase. My gambling friends are not addicts — they’re just hopelessly inept gamblers. We go to casinos after dinner and before we hit the clubs. Winning is, of course, preferable; none of my friends are eccentric enough to relish the stomachchurning pleasure of unnecessary loss. We can’t begin to afford a flat, so a flutter in a casino where the drinks, food and cigarettes are often free is an irresponsible and attractive proposition.
In June a 50,000 sq. ft casino will open at the Empire in Leicester Square bringing with it — in both scale and atmosphere — a little bit of Las Vegas glitter. This new casino will house a bar, two restaurants, as well as 30 gaming tables. It will also (for the kids perhaps) have an ice cream parlour and coffee bar called Mocha. Assuming you have a valid ID and are not Derren Brown, membership will be instant. Delayed gratification went out with shoulder pads. The press release from the Empire states, in italics, that ‘membership is complementary and compulsory’. Weirdly, gambling is one vice that the government has decided to embrace. Casinos will soon be made smoke-free zones. Therefore it will be possible, in a wonderfully New Labour paradox, for gamblers to ruin themselves without compromising their health. I am a member of the Ritz Club on Piccadilly. It’s decorated by Tessa Kennedy in gilt and damask, none of which I’ve paid for, and I don’t go there nearly enough to warrant a birthday card from them. Really I don’t.
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