Ladbrokes Casino Paddington

It's been a really busy and exciting week but sadly not much time for poker, it wasn't for lack of trying though.

I was down in London for a few meetings midweek and the hotel I was staying at was just around the corner from the new Ladbrokes Casino at Paddington.

It's 10:00pm, my flight was late and I had been travelling for 6 hours despite the fact that the time in the air between Glasgow and London is only about hour. Air travel certainly aint glamerous, quite frankly it's a pain in the a$$ with all these new security restrictions.


SECURITY - "I'm sorry sir you can't take that cigarette lighter through security you'll need to put it in the bin",
ME - "but I can just go into the W.H.Smiths on the other side of security and buy another one",
SECURITY - "Yes sir, but you still need to put this one in the bin"

What a ludicrous farse. However I got my own back, my cabin baggage was at least a centimetre bigger than the regulation size and I had a blunt pencinl in my bag too. W@nkers.

Sorry, got a bit side tracked there.

We popped into the new Ladbrokes Casino for a drink and perhaps a little flutter and we were immediatley impressed by the service and decor, very friendly, professional and tasteful. We stuck our heads into the Spoorts bar for a quick look then decided to go downstairs to the main area.

The first thing you spot when you enter the main gaming floor is the plush decor and subtle lighting. There is a small well stocked bar and a comfortable seating area around the bar. Steps lead down to a lower level that with more seating, a restaurant and private dining booths.

We order ourselves a couple of drinks and wander through into the gaming area where there are a few roulette tables, four of five blackjack tables, one bacarat table and a 3 card stud table, beyond the room we are in there is another room with slots and the cahier's cage. Sadly no dedicated poker room running cash games, tournaments or Sit & Go but then agin I wasn't' really expecting there to be.

I'm not really one for the games of chance in casinos, I would far rather gamble on something where I feel there is some skill or I have a bit of an edge and the casino always has an edge in the games they offer. But now I was here it felt only right to have a litlle flutter, little being the operative word. First up we decided to have a little shot at the roulette table. So my colleague and I sat down at a table with a £2.00 minimum bet and did nothing to aid the image of the Scots being tight by buying a mere £10.00 of chips each. I tried to put £2.00 on Red only to be told that the minimum bet of £2.00 only applied to the numbers on the inside. Well you don't need to be Einstein to work out that with odds of 35/1 my £2.00 chips weren't going to have much chance of winning on the centre numbers. So what the heck I stuck the £10.00 on Red, one spin, caput, chips gone. My colleague chose to loose his chips more gradually on £2.00 centre bets, he lasted all of five minutes. What a pair of cheapskates. While we were at the table a couple of ladies next to us were dropping £4.00 chips all over the board. They took there winnings up to about £1000 and back down to about £400 in the 5 minutes we were at the table. Another chap turned up with a single, big square £1,000 chip and a handful of pink £100 chips, he lost half of that in the five minutes we were there. My god, complete lunacy throwing big lumps of money like that at roulette.

Time for another drink and a wee shot at the 3 card stud, again not a game that I approve of as it's complete luck but what the hell. We sat down at the table, £5.00 minimum bet or £10 if you play the dealer (£5.00 ante and £5.00 if you play your hand). I bought £30.00 of chips and sat down, couldn't really afford to lose them all but pretty much resigned to the fact that I probably would. Well we played a few hands, at first I was up, then my chips started going down, got to about £20.00 was just about to cash out and I started winning agin. I built my chips back up to £60 and decided to cash out. I'd doubled my money so I could go home with a spring in my step and some crispy new notes in my wallet.

Got back to the hotel and I was just about to settle down to read my book for an hour, "The Great Casino Heist", but decided to blip through the TV channels and found that the classic moview "The Sting" was just about to start.

OK so I haven't managed to play any Internet or Live poker for a few days but I've been to a casino, I'm reading a book about casinos and I've watched a movie about gambling. Do you think I'm getting addicted or is somebody trying to tell me something.

I'll finish this post with a useless fact. Whilst watching "The Sting" I spotted a sign above a door that made me sit up and take note. If you are ever talking to anybody about "The Wabash Club", a poker room in Glasgow, you can smugly inform them that the club takes it's name from the sign above a club in one of the establishing shots of "The Sting".

PS> If you're in London and fancy a relaxing drink or a little flutter in comfortable, cool surroundings then I can recommend the Ladbrokes Paddington Casino, it's really nice. Next time I find myself spending the night in London I'll have to try and locate the Gutshot or the Vic and take a look.