Editorial profiles, not booking pages. Each entry names the architect, the period, the salons of note, and — where the house allows us to publish them — the minimums and the door.
Monte Carlo · Monaco
The reference point for every other house on the continent. The Salle Europe still uses hand-carved chairs from the Garnier commission; the Salle Blanche opens onto the terrace and, in the summer months, onto the Mediterranean itself.
Baden-Baden · Germany
Marlene Dietrich called it the most beautiful casino in the world, and it is difficult to disagree once you have stood in the Roter Saal at dusk. The Séchan interiors, executed for Jacques Bénazet, imported the language of the Paris theatres to a small German spa town.
Venice · Italy
The oldest continuously operating public gaming house in the world. Richard Wagner spent his final years in an apartment above the salons and died there in 1883; his rooms are preserved as a museum on the piano nobile.
Estoril · Portugal
During the Second World War Estoril was one of the last neutral crossroads in Europe. Ian Fleming, then a naval intelligence officer, played and observed at the tables in 1941; the atmosphere ended up in the opening pages of Casino Royale a decade later.
London · United Kingdom
For most of the 20th century the Hippodrome was a circus, a variety theatre and, briefly, a cabaret. The 2009–2012 conversion by Simon Thomas restored the Matcham auditorium as the main gaming floor, one of the few casinos in Europe with balconies and a domed proscenium.
Wiesbaden · Germany
Dostoevsky lost heavily here in 1865 and drafted The Gambler in the weeks that followed to pay off the debt. The roulette room in which he played is intact, and one of the tables from that period is still in daily use.