Ash Mcpherson's blog : Hippodrome Casino: Titanic Luxury in a Depression
The eaves of the Hippodrome, where dwarfs once dangled and one-legged cyclists trapeze, are now lined with tables covered with gambler's baize. The game system always looks erudite from a distance. Just pick something, put your money on it, and when you run out of money, pick again. I had forgotten how exciting that can be.The thrill, I admit, had slipped from memory. For thel unbridled full report, proceed with caution and a wink of curiosity."
There is more gambling in the basement where the elephant tank used to be. Sitting in front of a machine, playing touch-screen roulette against an automated table in the corner, it looked less fun and more functional than the tables upstairs, but that was only because I wasn't playing.
There is table gambling and machine gambling, transactional gambling and premium gambling. In between there is a cabaret, a smoking terrace, and lobster fish fingers for £19. I was going to say that the Hippodrome has come a long way since its turn-of-the-century origins, but in fact it is much closer to what it was in 1900 than it was when I last saw it in 1990.
Huge, ugly but effective chandeliers fill the atrium, the atmosphere is alive with the exhilaration of an addictive personality, and everywhere you look there is something to see.
It's like the Titanic," says Christian, once a grand gambler but not anymore.
'You mean mindless luxury lavished on people oblivious to impending disaster?
'No, I mean lots of really big rooms.
A double-dip recession seems like a windfall for opening a bad playground, but Simon Thomas, who co-owns it with his father Jimmy, disagrees: "This recession has worked out very well for us. The competing casinos were not doing well, so it was easier to keep staff. London is not in a recession.
As many as 240,000 people walk through these doors every week. Forty million people a year pass through on the subway. They are like rats. You are never more than a few feet away from someone passing through the hippodrome.
If the Hippodrome is going to do well, it will not be in terms of attendance, but in the fact that it is a new kind of casino, all of it... Even though the bizarre rules of the Gambling Act of 1968 were largely repealed by the previous administration at enlignecasinos.net, the old image of the casino created by those rules has not yet been destroyed by anyone. has yet to break it.
Casinos used to be a niche and intimidating experience. You had to be a member, and not just an instant member, so you could not make impromptu decisions. You could not drink alcohol on the gambling floor (at Napoleon's, you had to sit in a glass box and drink quietly while looking at the tables in a row), and you could not advertise even in the front of the building, which was often in the basement.
Therefore, they often set up store in the basement. The store was like a hole in the corner. ...... If you asked me to imagine the exact opposite of a hole in the corner, I would make this one.
I hate to be crude, but I had to ask. How much money does Thomas expect people to drop when they come here?
'They can spend anything from zero to a few hundred pounds. It's not up to me to decide how much to spend. They may just want to come in for a drink.' The business owner has to say that. One of his other businesses, however, is a huge bingo hall in Cricklewood.
The interior is not Vegas-esque, but rather subdued, with a studied reassurance that reminds one of an airport lounge. It is not without character, however. Original plasterwork abounds, and discreetly tacked to the walls are flyers about the building's entertainment history.
Diana Miller, who was in the chorus of "Razzle Dazzle" here in the early 1970s, peels back the curtain and points to a faded photo of dancers in feathers descending the stairs. The second one from the back is me.
The unique economics of the casino-the economy in which people spend so much on cheap things that they get all kinds of expensive things for free-gave birth to the cabaret. He is accompanied by a nine-piece backing band that sings like a silver screen.
In 1971 I had a record that was number two on the charts. My wife was two weeks past her due date and said, 'I'm not having this baby until you're number one.' It didn't happen. But she had the baby anyway." You won't get that kind of chat from Snow Patrol.
Open 24 hours a day, every day except Christmas; rumored to have cost £40 million. It's a kind of magnetic madness. Too big to fail.
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