Deck level · rooms 1–36
Deck Room
The standard casino hotel room, opening straight onto the promenade deck. You can hear the boards from the bed.
- Sleeps
- 2
- Size
- 22 m²
- Outlook
- Deck and shore
From £140 a night
0 m Marsden Bay · Lancashire coast
The casino hotelat the end of the pier.
Empire Pier Casino Hotel is a fictional British casino hotel built along 310 metres of Victorian cast iron: sixty-four sea-view casino hotel rooms over the water, a ballroom that still has its sprung floor, and a nine-table casino in the pavilion at the very end.
120 m The casino hotel
A casino hotel
you have to walk
out to sea to reach.
Empire Pier Casino Hotel is imagined as a casino hotel with no car park, no lobby and no way in except along the deck.
The pier opened in 1887 and lost its theatre to a fire in 1962. In this concept the ironwork was rebuilt and three things put back on it: sixty-four casino hotel rooms at the 120-metre mark, the ballroom at 200, and a small casino in the pavilion at the pier head. The whole casino hotel is one building, 310 metres long and eleven metres wide, standing in the Irish Sea.
- 15:00
- Check in at the shore end
- 0 m
- 16:30
- Tea in the ballroom, band playing
- 200 m
- 19:00
- Dinner facing the weather
- 200 m
- 21:00
- The casino opens its tables
- 310 m · 18+
- 07:30
- Breakfast, and the lamps go off
- 120 m
A casino hotel with the sea underneath it and four thousand bulbs on top.
64Casino hotel rooms and suites
09Tables in the casino
310 mDeck, shore to casino
3 924Bulbs, counted last winter
120 m Casino hotel rooms
Sixty-four rooms
standing in the sea.
Every casino hotel room here has water under the floor. Sash windows, brass fittings, wool blankets, and glazing thick enough that a force eight sounds like weather rather than an emergency.
Upper deck · rooms 37–60
Sea Room
Upper deck, facing west, with a bay window that hangs over the water and gets the whole sunset without moving.
- Sleeps
- 2
- Size
- 30 m²
- Outlook
- Open sea
From £225 a night
Pier head · rooms 61–64
The Lantern Suite
Four suites in the pavilion roof above the casino, with a glazed lantern over the bed and the sea on three sides.
- Sleeps
- 3
- Size
- 52 m²
- Outlook
- Sea, all round
From £410 a night
Rates include breakfast and VAT at 20%. Two-night minimum at weekends. Casino entry is never bundled into a room rate.
310 m The casino · adults 18+
Nine tables,
310 metres out.
The casino occupies the pavilion at the pier head — one octagonal room under a glazed dome, nine casino tables, a bar and windows on all eight sides. No machines, no music, no screens above the tables. On a rough night the casino is the loudest quiet room in England.
RouletteTwo wheels, French and American
BlackjackThree casino tables, hand-dealt
Punto bancoTwo tables, hosted
Three card pokerTwo tables
21:00 Casino opens 02:00 Last hand 02:30 Casino closes
How casino play works here →18+ Photo ID is checked at the casino door every night under Think 21, and against SENSE, the self-exclusion scheme British casinos share. Membership is not required — that rule went in 2005. Tell the host your limit before you sit down and they will hold you to it.
CASINO
PIER HEAD · EST. 1887 · 18+
Nine tables under a glass dome, open from nine until two.
200 m Ballroom and dining
The ballroom
kept its floor.
One kitchen feeds the whole casino hotel from the ballroom: tea at half four with a band on, dinner from seven, and something hot for whoever is still in the casino at one.
Daily · 08:00–23:00
The Winter Garden
Glass on three sides at the 200-metre mark. Coffee, cake and a view of the weather coming in. Open to day visitors as well as casino hotel guests.
Plan a stay →Nightly · 18:00–02:30
The Dome Bar
The bar inside the casino. Lancashire gin, a short whisky list, and a longer list of things with no alcohol in them at all.
See the casino →0 m Back on shore
The bay, and
what's behind it.
The casino hotel is at the end of a promenade with a town behind it and the fells an hour inland. Three things worth walking back for.
Twice daily · free
The low tide walk
Out across the sand under the pier with the ranger, looking at what the ironwork has collected since 1887. Check the tide table first.
14 minutes on foot
The Winter Gardens
A restored Victorian glasshouse and concert hall in the town, still putting on the kind of programme it always did.
55 minutes by car
The Forest of Bowland
Empty moorland, hen harriers, and one of the darkest night skies in England once the pier lamps are behind you.
4 minMarsden Bay station, on foot
2 h 40London Euston, by train
1 h 10Manchester Airport
0 spacesNo car park. It's a pier.
2 nights Casino hotel break
The Illuminations Break.
The most-booked stay at this casino hotel: a sea room, dinner in the ballroom, afternoon tea with the band, and an introduction to the casino if you want one.
Check dates →- Sea Room2 nights
- Breakfast, both morningsBallroom
- Dinner for twoThree courses
- Afternoon tea with the bandOnce
- Casino introductionOptional · 18+
- From£520
? Casino FAQ
Casino
questions.
What this casino hotel page is, who may enter the casino, and how casino gambling is actually licensed in Great Britain.
No. Empire Pier Casino Hotel is an invented British casino hotel, built to demonstrate casino hotel content and responsive web design. It takes no bookings, holds no gambling licence and processes no payments. The pier, the rates and the casino are all fictional.
Not simply by deciding to. Any real casino in Great Britain needs an operating licence from the Gambling Commission, a premises licence from the local authority, and personal licences for the people running it. On top of that, the Gambling Act 2005 created only a fixed number of new casino premises licences, and they are allocated to named local authority areas — you cannot conjure a new one for a pier.
Adults aged 18 and over, with valid photo identification. British casinos operate Think 21, so anyone who looks under 21 is asked for ID as a matter of routine. Casino membership has not been required in Great Britain since the 24-hour rule was abolished in 2005.
SENSE is the multi-operator self-exclusion scheme for land-based casinos in Great Britain. Register once and you are excluded from participating casinos across the country, not just the one you walked into. GAMSTOP does the same job for licensed online gambling. Either would apply to a real casino floor in a British casino hotel.
No, and most guests do not. The casino is one room at the far end of a 310-metre pier, open five and a half hours a night. Casino entry is never bundled into a room rate and nothing about the stay assumes you will play.
Decide a limit in money and in time before you walk out to the casino, and only play with money you can afford to lose. Never borrow to gamble and never chase a loss. If it stops being fun, stop. In Great Britain the National Gambling Helpline is free and open around the clock, and you can self-exclude through SENSE for casinos or GAMSTOP for online.