Casino Canberra Casinos Australia
Canberra is the only casino in Australia that allows players to split on regular pairs — excluding aces — to 4 hands. You can also double your bet on any two cards and not just 9,10 or 11, something not available in Melbourne and Sydney casinos. The casino offers over 39,000 square feet of gaming area with over 41 table games and 6 poker tables. Casino Canberra’s table games include Blackjack, Canberra Poker, Mini Baccarat, Money Wheel, Pai Gow, Rapid Roulette and Roulette.Casino Canberra is one of the smaller casinos in Australia and does not offer slot machines.This was a bit of a disappointment, but they definitely have many. Casino Canberra is a land-based casino located in Canberra’s Central Business District. Canberra is the Australian capital city. Canberra was the first legal casino to operate in the Capital city’s Territory. It is built on land that was acquired from Glebe Park on a 99-year lease from the casino.
Tourists vising Canberra and residents of this Australian Capital Territory city have a single casino complex where table games and poker are allowed – Canberra Casino, also known as Casino Canberra. Canberra Casino Game Details. Casino customers looking for traditional table games and poker will find Canberra Casino a welcome spot.
Canberra is the capital of Australia, and Australian Capital Territory is set aside to be the seat of all government in the country. Located in a relatively small area in the south-eastern portion of Australia and surrounded by the territory of New South Wales, ACT the smallest federal territory in all of Australia, containing just one city, Canberra itself.
Tourists vising Canberra and residents of this Australian Capital Territory city have a single casino complex where table games and poker are allowed – Canberra Casino, also known as Casino Canberra.
Canberra Casino Game Details
Casino customers looking for traditional table games and poker will find Canberra Casino a welcome spot. The site’s gambling floor takes up a little more than 38,000 square feet, a large enough space for the inclusion of poker machines. Electronic gambling machines are available at the casino, though the site is not licensed to host actual pokies. Many attempt to lobby the territorial government of ACT and the government of Australia to allow the site to place poker machines on the floor have been met with consternation from lobbyists who represent the bar and restaurant industry in Canberra. Those areas bring in a lot of income through poker machines, and the concern is that if Casino Canberra starts to host these popular games, income from the machines at the city’s many nightclubs and eateries will start to plummet. As of this writing, Canberra’s casino is not able to host any spinning reel games.
In Australia, pokies are such a big part of casino gambling, it is very unusual for a venue of the size of Casino Canberra not to provide poker machine games. However, video poker and other skill machine games are on offer – a few hundred of them in fact. Video poker games are distinct from pokies in that they are variations of machine games based on the rules of the card game poker, and are therefore classified as skill games. Pokies are traditionally considered games of chance and are in a distinct category from video poker titles and the other skill games hosted at Casino Canberra.
In order for Canberra’s only land-based casino to provide the poker machines that Australians and foreigners love, a piece of legislation put together by the territorial government would have to pass and allow Canberra Casino to be licensed for this type of game. A majority vote at the territorial level in support of such licensure is unlikely; many times in the past just such legislation has been put forth and tabled.
Poker Room Details
The fact that Canberra Casino has a poker room sets the site apart from Australia’s other gambling floors. Other casinos in the country, almost all of which have licenses to host pokies and a license allowing for a larger collection of table games, don’t offer a true head-to-head poker room or poker tournaments. At Canberra’s casino gambling site, every Thursday is set aside for poker tournaments where as many as forty players compete at No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em games with a buy-in set at AUD $115. At these tournament events, cash prizes are handed out to gamblers who finish in the top five.
Casino Canberra Casinos Australia News
The casino’s biggest live poker tourney events are the site’s two seasonal championships, the Winter Poker Tournament and the Summer Poker Tournament. The only way to get a seat at these events is to win them at satellite events that take place over the course of a given year. The satellite tournament schedule is available from the poker room or on the casino’s website.
Customers interested in them can take part in Sit & Go tourneys only available by demand. The casino’s poker facility allows between six and eight gamblers at a time to play in small No Limit Hold ‘Em poker tournaments, with buy-ins set at AUD $60. These on-demand only events have no re-buys, and offer cash prizes for the top three finishers at each table. Blinds in these tournaments are set to begin at $25/$50 and increase every fifteen minutes until a tourney winner is established, with blinds doubling after the first two hours of play.
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- »Aquis Continues Pursuit of Casino Canberra Project
There’s something to be said for perseverance. Aquis Entertainment still wants to proceed with its $330 million redevelopment of Casino Canberra. But this message is years in the works and lays atop many failed negotiations with and proposals to the ACT government.
Now, amidst a pandemic and resulting unprecedentedly tough economic times, the Hong Kong businessman at the head of Aquis is ready to give it another try.
Original High Hopes for Casino Canberra
The federal Australian government issued a casino license to build Casino Canberra in 1982. The Australian Capital Territory government subsequently selected Casinos Austria International to operate Casino Canberra Limited. Casinos Austria paid $19 million for the land and $500,000 per year as a licensing fee.
By the time all of that was settled, the first Casino Canberra opened in 1992 at the National Convention Centre, a temporary location. In July 1994, the official casino opened in its current location.
Aquis Entertainment bought the casino in 2014 for $6 million. Owner and Hong Kong billionaire Tony Fung said at the time that he had an “exciting vision” for the casino.
Aquis Displays Tenacity and Hope
The purchase price for Casino Canberra seemed low. There was a catch to the license, however. The ACT government restricted the casino to table games only, no poker machines.
The reason for the licensing limitation was due to the influence of Canberra’s clubs and pubs with the ACT government. The idea that Casino Canberra could operate pokies would threaten the revenue of the other establishments.
When the casino began to struggle financially, its management in 2013 petitioned the government for 200 pokie machines. Casinos Austria International was even prepared to sign the land back over to the government and pay initial fees in order to license 200 machines. That attempt failed.
In 2016, after Aquis acquired the property, Aquis submitted a new proposal to the ACT government. The company would agree to a multi-million-dollar redevelopment project of the property if they could set up 500 pokies. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr then agreed but negotiated the number of machines down to 200 and included other stipulations.
That failed, too, for the most part.
Aquis then worked with Blue Whale Entertainment, a company that wanted to acquire Casino Canberra in a majority-share deal with Aquis. The two entities moved forward with the deal: Blue Whale would pay $32 million for the casino and a controlling share of Aquis’ share capital. All shareholders agreed.
The agreement was based upon a positive end-result of negotiations with the ACT government for pokies. Talks continued from 2018 through 2019, with all necessary steps taken toward a finalized deal. Close to the last hour, though, as the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission was conducting its final review, the ACT government said Aquis and Blue Whale failed to provide requested information.
Aquis emerged from that failed process, still with hope for Casino Canberra.
Same Ideas with Renewed Vigor
No one can accuse Aquis of giving up easily. With Fung determined to make Casino Canberra live up to its full potential, he emerged from Covid-19 shutdowns with hope.
In his recent address for the annual general meeting, Fung noted, “I continue to believe our proposal for the development of an integrated entertainment precinct in Canberra’s CBD offers the ACT a once-in-a-lifetime tourism infrastructure opportunity.”
Fung confirmed that the most recent discussions with the ACT government set the number of electronic gaming machines at 200 per the redevelopment plan, but “we have not advanced our discussions with the government any further than previously reported.”
Casino Canberra Post-Covid
Australia as a whole has been emerging from the 2020 coronavirus shutdowns slowly and cautiously. The reopening process for Casino Canberra has been no different.
Casino Canberra Casinos Australia Official
Casino Canberra plans to reopen next Monday, August 10, at noon. The ACT government approved the move, and some of the rules in place for the reopening include:
- Casino checking temperatures and requiring sign-ins upon customer arrivals
- Customers social distancing at 1.5m apart
- All parties encouraged to use hand sanitizer regularly
Website information for customers and detailing safety protocols is quite sparse. Nevertheless, we know that Casino Canberra customers will be able to play the pokies and partake in food and drink. Activities like poker tournaments and roulette competitions will not happen. In fact, the entire poker room will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
It may be some time before Aquis reveals exactly how badly the coronavirus pandemic hurt the company’s bottom line. And only time will tell how safely the casino can reopen and remain open, as well as which parts of the casino will be available.
For now, Fung remains upbeat and prepared to resume discussions with the ACT government to make improvements to Casino Canberra going forward.