Casino Canberra (or Canberra Casino) is a

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

located in the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, the capital city of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It was the first legal casino to open in the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

, built on land excised from Glebe Park under a 99-year lease agreement between the casino licensee and the territory government. It is small in comparison with other casinos in Australia and does not incorporate any hotel accommodation, theatres, auditoriums or retail stores. It is the only casino in Australia not licensed to operate

poker machines A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine ( Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively ...

. There are 39 gaming tables where

blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

and other games are played. The casino also has a

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

lounge and sports lounge with TAB facilities.

History

Following permission from the

Federal Government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

to issue a casino licence and despite strong opposition from Dr

Hector Kinloch Hector Gilchrist Lusk Mactaggart Kinloch (14 December 1927 – 6 August 1993) was an American-born Australian academic and politician. Biography He was born Boston, Massachusetts in 1927. He travelled to England, where he graduated from Ch ...

of the Residents Rally, Casinos Austria International was selected by the ACT Government as the preferred operator on 31 January 1992. A subsidiary company, Casino Canberra Limited was formed for this purpose. In exchange for the licence, Casinos Austria paid $19 million up front for lease of the land and an annual $500,000 licensing fee. A temporary casino began operation on 14 November 1992 at the National Convention Centre. The permanent casino opened on 29 July 1994. Former Prime Minister

Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and union organiser who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (A ...

and the ACT Chief Minister

Rosemary Follett Rosemary Follett (born 27 March 1948) is a former Australian politician who was the inaugural Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, serving in 1989 and again between 1991 and 1995. She was the first woman to become head of gove ...

were among the guests at the large opening party hosted by Dr Leo Walner, then head of Casinos Austria. Bob Hawke was the winner of the golden roulette ball that was used for the first spin of the roulette wheel in the temporary casino. The Aquis Group controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Tony Fung acquired the casino in 2014.

Licence restrictions

Casino Canberra holds the only licence to operate gambling tables in the Australian Capital Territory. Unlike other Australian casinos, it cannot operate

. The casino has previously tried unsuccessfully to lobby the territory government to remove restrictions that prevent it from installing poker machines. These attempts have failed, in part due to concerns from Canberra's clubs, which fear loss of revenue from their own poker machines. Amendments to the Casino Control Act (2006) which would allow the casino to operate poker machines have been unsuccessfully moved in the legislative assembly on two occasions. In March 2013, it was reported by

The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in ...

, amid concerns about its ongoing viability, that the casino was willing to hand back land to the government that would allow the National Convention Centre to be expanded, and pay upfront fees in exchange for licensing rights for 200 machines. In May 2016, following submission of a proposal to massively redevelop the Casino site in exchange for the right to possess 500 poker machine licences, an in-principal agreement was reached with the Chief Minister Andrew Barr. The agreement centred on the possible use of 200 poker machines but only after redevelopment had been completed and only if the poker machine licences were purchased from owners of existing machines under the poker machine cap.

References

External links

Netticasinot
{{Canberra landmarks 1994 establishments in Australia Casinos completed in 1994 Hotels established in 1994 Buildings and structures in Canberra Casinos in Australia Tourist attractions in Canberra