Empire Leicester Square Casino Poker
The Empire is a nine table poker room right in Leicester Square, just down the block from Hippodrome. It’s on the bottom floor of a full-service casino. They had a £1/2 game going early on the Sunday morning that I visited, and five games going at the other two times I was there, later in the day. The Empire offers the best games, top dealers, and round-the-clock-entertainment. There are games to suit every style and mood, plus the hottest Poker room in town.
- Roulette
- Blackjack
- Caribbean Stud Poker
- Three Card Poker
- Baccarat
- Pai Gow
- Slots
- Multi Player Poker
Part of the Caesars Entertainment chain, the Casino at the Empire is located in an old theatre in Leicester Square – a pedestrianised square in the heart of London’s West End. It is a fairly spacious venue with a 55,000 square foot gaming space split over two floors.
The Empire is easily accessible by public transport with the nearest Tube stations being Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus or you can park in the nearby Leicester Square car park and members of the casino can get their ticket validated. London City Airport is 10 miles east of Leicester Square whilst Heathrow is 18 miles to the west. Take your pick from the hundreds of hotels within a stone’s throw of the casino.
The Empire has games to suit all tastes including American Roulette, Blackjack, Baccarat, Three Card Poker and Pai Gow. It also has a wide range of slots, some with jackpots of up to £10,000 and maximum stakes of £5, as well as electronic machines and it holds regular slots tournaments. Poker lovers are able to play in both cash games and tournaments in their dedicated poker room (see their website for up to date details). They also offer poker packages from £25 per person and “learn to play” packages. Membership allows players to earn rewards points at the casino.
Their Asian restaurant with its open kitchen allows you to watch skilled Chinese chefs in action as they prepare your food. The Casino at The Empire has four bars for you to choose from - the Icon Balcony bar, dancing in the Shadow bar, the Vapor bar on the casino floor or the Sports Bar where you can watch a variety of live sports action.
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User reviews
Lovely
I absolutely love The Casino at Leicester Square and have been coming here with my boyfriend ever since it opened. We come a couple of times a year and always start off together at the roulette tables which are always buzzing with excitement. Then we meander around the casino, have a bit to eat and he goes to play blackjack whilst I head to the slots. I usually join him at the blackjack table later in the evening, and this is where we end our night.
We set a strict casino budget which we split between us (plus money for food and drinks) and we leave if we lose it or when the table goes cold - this could be 10pm but once it was 5am after we had a really hot streak! If we have any big wins we put half of it into our holiday fund and half for the next time we come.
The drinks are similar to the prices you would get in a pub in leicester squre, and the food is very reasonable and delicious.
You can also collect player rewards points when you play (http://www.playerrewardscard.com/) which you can spend at the bar or the restaurant - we save them up and use them to splurge occasionally.
We recently brought my mum here for her birthday and she had a whale of a time playing the slots with me - I think she wants to come again next year!
Empire Leicester Square
The empire has changed quite a bit since my previous visit, which resulted in a few minutes of confused wandering whilst I looked for the entrance to the poker room (now accessed from the lobby, clearly marked with the WSOP logo which must be a new sponsor).
Inside you'll find a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, with good quality furnishings. In fact, the poker room has some of the most comfortable seats I've ever seen in a card room - high quality leather reclining desk chairs.
The rake here is a little high (10% capped at £10 at 1/2 vs 5% at the Fox or The Vic) but it really is a case of you get what you pay for. I'll pay the extra just to not have my back hurt at the end of the night.
Some of the rake goes into a player rewards program which earns you 60p per hour of play, to be spent at the bar or restaurant (a beer is around £4 so it's one free beer or every 7 hours) plus funds a bad beat jackpot (at time of writing this was over £50,000) and a monthly rake race which is guaranteed at £25k.
The waitresses were quick and attentive and made sure I didn't run out of beer, and the dealers were skilled and professional, yet friendly.
The poker room mainly caters for cash game players with games starting from £1/£2 (no £1/£1 here - head to the fox for that) and seems to always have at least a few tables running around the clock with the evenings and weekends being understadably the busiest times.
It appears like they are trying to offer more in the way of tournaments and their schedule includes some interesting games such as bounty tournaments (where part of the entry fee is goes into the prize fund and the rest goes to the person who knocks you out of the tournament). Unfortunately there aren't a huge amount of tournament players and the last time I went the game was cancelled. However, I'm sure interest will pick up once the word gets around. The 4pm tournament start time probably doesn't help..
Empire Leicester Square Casino Poker No Deposit
Fun Fun Fun
I visited this casino on a weekend trip down to london after being enticed in by the dancing girls with the big feather head dresses (cant think of what there called) and was instantly impressed.
The casino is way bigger and much more impressive than the ones I'm used to in Scotland, and there are tons of tables, slots and scantily clad waitresses. The drinks are a little expensive for my taste, but thats probably just london.
All the staff are very friendly and it seems like everybody was having a good time and I had a lot of fun watching the guys in suits bet huge amounts (for me at least lol) on the roulette table.
Awesome
Empire Leicester Square Casino Poker Tournaments
If you're looking for a casino that's a little more vegas, then the Empire might be for you. It's much bigger than most other london casinos and includes multiple bars all of which serve draft Asahi (many drunken nights have been spent here). The empire is also just an awesome place to stop in for one last beer before heading home on a saturday night (where else can you get a beer at 3am without paying a ridiculous cover charge in the leicester sq area!).
The casino also puts on plenty of special events throughout the year - such as a free chinese buffet for the chinese new year, complete with dancers.
The poker room is segregated from the main casino floor, which is nice and there are always plenty of cash games going on plus daily tournaments.
The casino has everything you'd expect - multiple blackjack & roulette tables, slots and so on.
Definitely worth checking out!