Despite its innate love for sports betting and playing the lottery, the UK has never quite taken to casino gaming in the way other countries and regions have.
It’s true that you can find a casino, slot gaming establishment or arcade in most of the UK’s biggest cities, but these tend to be small in stature – and less glitzy – when compared to their counterparts in Las Vegas and Macau.
And yet, things could have been so different had plans to turn some of the UK’s biggest cities into gambling meccas – complete with so-called ‘super casinos’ – come to fruition in the mid-2000s.
Destination: Unknown
It took decades for the government to sit down and take a look at gambling regulations in the UK with fresh eyes, but they finally took the time to review the legislation in 2005.
The fruits of that labour, the Gambling Act 2005, brought about change in many different areas of the industry in the UK, and one of the most controversial of these was an agreement to introduce eight so-called ‘destination’ casinos across the United Kingdom. These would later be termed ‘super casinos’ by the media.
In May 2006, a shortlist was drawn up that identified eight possible locations for the destination casinos. These were:
- London (Wembley Stadium)
- London (O2 Arena)
- Manchester (Sportcity)
- Cardiff
- Blackpool
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
- Glasgow
Other sites that had shown an interest in welcoming a super casino, which included Coventry, Leeds, Newport and Wakefield, were rejected.
Plans were moving forward at some pace, and by January 2007 it had been announced that – to some shock – Manchester had been selected ahead of Blackpool, the bookies’ favourite at odds of 8/15, and London to be the site of the UK’s first destination casino.
Blueprints for the venue, drawn up by Manchester City Council, promised that the 53,000 sq ft establishment would create 2,700 jobs and see gamers flock to the city, generating a windfall in tourism revenue, with mega-brands including Genting and MGM thought to be keen on acting as the proprietors of the new build.
All was looking rather rosy for the future of casino gaming in the UK, then. But it would take just a matter of weeks for plans to turn England, Scotland and Wales into a gambling destination to rival all others to be torn up….
Lords and Cowboys
In March 2007, just weeks after Manchester was confirmed as the location for the UK’s first super casino, the rug was to be pulled on the whole project.
Lobbying groups had besieged ministers with concerns about the socio-cultural environment that the new destination casinos would create, while the Conservative Party had also opposed the plans.
Meanwhile, in London, developers were pressing on with plans to turn the Millennium Dome into a super casino, with the American investor Phillip Anschutz reportedly willing to pump millions into the build.
He began schmoozing MPs too, with deputy prime minister John Prescott invited to Anschutz’s home in Colorado. Prescott had failed to disclose the trip or the cowboy outfit he was gifted (weird but true), and the politician was accused of effectively taking a bribe to promote the Millennium Dome renovation in parliament.
With pressure forming from all sides, Tony Blair, the prime minister at the time, gave in, announcing plans to reduce the super casino project from eight venues to just one – the establishment already green lit for Manchester, which was to be built by the South African entrepreneur, Sol Kerzner, at a cost of a cool £250 million.
Even though the Gambling Act laid the foundations for destination casinos to be built, they still had to be voted in by the House of Lords.
But they didn’t go for it, blocking the building of the Manchester casino and 16 other gaming venues planned for sites across the UK.
With no ‘Plan B’, the then culture secretary Tessa Jowell was forced to shelve the plan for that parliamentary session, and while it was agreed that a number of smaller casinos would be licensed, ultimately the super casino project was taken off the table when Gordon Brown replaced Blair as prime minister in 2008.
Brown, as chancellor, had upped the tax rate paid by casinos to 50% in his previous budget, and so the Scot evidently wasn’t an advocate for the gambling industry even before the new venture was mooted. He would soon sack Jowell from his Cabinet, too.
It was a decision met with joy by some and dismay by others. Manchester City Council threatened to sue the government for the rug-pull, while a number of casino brands warned they would pull their investment from the UK and spend it in the Far East instead.
What Happened Next?
In amongst all the shenanigans, the House of Lords eventually signed off on a bid to get 16 smaller casinos built on UK soil.
These were split equally with eight ‘large’ and eight ‘small’ casinos agreed, with their size determined by the number of slot machines allowed in each. A large casino could house 150 slots, while the smaller venues were allowed up to 80.
Unfortunately, many of those designated as large venues never saw the light of day. Indeed, only three such casinos were opened within the next decade: the Westfield Stratford City complex in London, Genting’s Resorts World in Birmingham and The Casino MK, the Aspers-ran establishment in Milton Keynes.
Other venues, in Leeds, Southampton and Great Yarmouth, would eventually be built years later, although a proposed large casino in Middlesbrough never got off the ground.
How Many Casinos Are There In the UK?
Although plans to turn the UK into a global gambling destination never took hold, there’s still a sizable number of casinos and gaming venues available to players in England, Scotland and Wales in particular.
The definition of what constitutes a casino, as opposed to an arcade or gaming room, is difficult to pin down, but as a general guide there were 156 venues considered to be casinos operating in the UK as of 2020.
Unfortunately, along came the health crisis to decimate an industry that requires little to no restrictions to thrive, and by the end of 2020 that number had shrunk to 131.
It’s not known officially how many casinos are still in operation in the UK in early 2023, however spiraling living costs have impacted the leisure industry harder than many other sectors. The fear is that casino gaming could be a major casualty of the economic difficulties being faced on these shores, with talks of ‘super casinos’ now a long way off….