Across the United Kingdom, land-based casinos are dying a slow death with establishments being closed up and down the country. However, one city, the second city, is still representing the need for physical casino play. Birmingham is home to a handful of casinos that continue to delight casino enthusiasts that prefer the real-life sights and sounds of casino classics such as blackjack, roulette, poker, and slots.
The Grosvenor and Genting Casinos head up the main casino acts in Birmingham with Resorts World and a few alternative options in the form of Merkur Slots and Admiral Casino providing the support cast. The former two are known up and down the UK and together have 87 casinos between them. However, two of the biggest for each chain are found in the second city, with a combination of locals and visitors alike continuing to flood through the doors, despite the emergence of more convenient and accessible casino play in an online format.
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
Digital Era Driving Online Casino Play
While casinos in Birmingham are still going strong, the same cannot be said for many casinos around the country. For many years already, casinos, even of the high-profile nature, have been slowing closing down including the oldest casino in the UK, the Crockford’s Club in Mayfair, London. After nearly two centuries in business, the time came in October 2023 for the casino to close its doors permanently.
The main reason provided for the closure was the failure to attract wealthy tourists. However, there were deeper underlying issues caused initially by the pandemic and then the emergence of a digitalised lifestyle. The threat to land-based casinos, even those in Birmingham, comes in an invisible form, and one that is changing our everyday habits.
The digital era, powered by the intangible data transfer across digital devices has created a new realm for people to operate in. For the entertainment and UK casino industry in particularly, the opening of a limitless chasm in the online world created an opportunity to extend its influence on the online population, backed up by new waves of innovation in technology and programming that can produce extremely interactive and exciting online casino games.
Not only can online casino operators be accessed on the full range of digital devices, but the path from signing up to making deposits to entering the virtual gaming floor is seamless. Players in the UK have gradually migrated from a land-based casino to an online casino that accepts credit card. Despite the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) cracking down on the use of credit cards on online casinos in 2020 in a bid to prevent harm from gambling, the ability for UK-based players to connect to internationally licensed online casinos gives players the opportunity to use debit or credit cards for online casino play.
Same Warning Signs to Look Out For
Despite operating in a different dimension, the rules of engagement are the same on online casinos. For deposits made by card for example, it is still important to spend within means and monitor spending, as an individual would with any other card transaction. And with more emphasis placed on gambling addiction by the UKGC, players need to be as vigilant in the online realm as they would in a physical casino. There is no doubting the impact of online casinos on players in the UK. But despite the growing popularity, there are those that still like to see the action unfold right before their eyes in the real world. And for that, Birmingham is still well equipped on the casino front.