Gambling sensibly

What we are actually after

An evening at a table and then up the stair is a better night for this hotel than a guest the door has to close around. That is not a slogan. It is why the vault is set up the way it is. Four tables, not twelve. One o’clock, not four. No credit. Nothing in the building dispenses cash. The bar in the passage stops serving at midnight, an hour before the tables, and people work that out fast.

Age, every visit

Eighteen in England, photo ID every single time, including for the guest who ate in the old office an hour before. A picture of a licence on a phone is not a licence.

What the staff will do on the spot

• Hold a limit you set. Say the figure before you sit down and it goes on the sheet.
• Say what the time is the first time you ask. There is a clock over the counter and it is right.
• Keep your chair for twenty minutes while you go and eat or stand outside.
• Bar you for a few days if that is what you want, noted for the next shift.
• Take a self-exclusion at the desk, in person, in force the same evening.

None of it is on this website and that is the point. Every one of those a thing you say to a person who is right there, fifty paces from where you are standing. We could build a form for it. It would be quicker for us and no use to you.

Five things you might notice about yourself

• You are thinking about the vault while standing on the harbour, which is the thing you came to this city for.
• You went back down the passage after telling yourself out loud that you were done.
• You know which cash machine on Redcliff Street is nearest and you learned it this week.
• You are playing at a figure you would not say out loud to whoever you came with.
• You would rather not be recognised on the way in. You are, because this place has eighteen rooms and no more.

How the staff are trained

Everybody who works that door is taken through it ahead of the first shift and yearly thereafter: the law, how to check ID, how to refuse somebody without making it a scene, and the guest drinking quicker than they play. The duty manager goes through the passage twice a night. Both have closed a table early and neither was asked to justify it.

Asking

Tell the person on the door, or the desk. It does not need to come out tidily. Nobody will make it awkward and nobody will tell anyone who does not need to know.