The biggest & busiest casino in London with live gaming, entertainment and bars open 24/7, the Hippodrome Casino is a cornerstone of West End life. A world-class gaming and nightlife venue next to Leicester Square, the Hippodrome is a stunning building, originally created by architect Frank Matcham for circus and variety performances.
The Hippodrome opened as an extensive leisure casino complex in July 2012 under the aegis of Simon Thomas, executive chairman and majority shareholder. It is a project that began in 2005 with an investment of £45 million in the theatre building and adjacent Cranbourn Mansions, both Grade 2 listed heritage buildings.
Simon Thomas
Thomas tells blooloop:
“There’s a very grand, austere casino in Monte Carlo. One of my fears when I did the Hippodrome, around taking on an old Victorian theatre and a whole atrium, was to manage the energy to make it feel stunning, and less like a museum or a church. We’ve contrived to achieve that.”
Outlining his background prior to the Hippodrome Casino, he adds:
“My family has been in the gambling and entertainment business for generations. My great-great-grandparents were travelling showmen. Then my father’s generation settled down, and he set up a bingo business, which he sold in 1987. He then set me up with a bingo hall in Loughborough, which I started running in 1989 when I came out of the City.”
On graduating from university, Thomas spent two years at City merchant bankers Singer & Friedlander Limited.
“It was superb timing because the 1968 Gambling Act had been draconian – no advertising, no promoting, no live entertainment; you had to be a member for 24 hours before you could gamble – all these austere restrictions were then removed for bingo. So I caught the deregulation wave of bingo.
“I took it from a converted cinema with 300 old ladies playing Housey Housey for a fiver to the Cricklewood Bingo Hall, which opened mid-nineties and was off-the-chart bingo: 2,700 seats 65,000 square feet, three bars, two restaurants, two cabaret stages, wedding license, cinema license, 800 car spaces. It was a fun entertainment complex around bingo.”
Changes in casino legislation
Roll on to 2005, Thomas had just been the Industry Trade Association president. As such, he had been involved in all the discussions that led to the 2005 Gambling Act, which was going to be bad news for bingo. Bingo, it transpired, had gone too fast, and was about to be pushed back.
“However, it was good for casino, giving casino all of the freedoms that I’d learned how to use, with a similar entertainment/ gambling-based entertainment product. The smoking ban was also coming up, in 2006. Through having been Trade Association president, I had contacts all over the world who tracked what was really happening, not what people thought might happen. My analysis was that the impact was going to be materially worse than the market was expecting.”
Accordingly, he made the decision to sell the bingo business:
“I thought it would be fun to transfer the skill base onto Casino and, at exactly the same time, in 2005, the Hippodrome lost its alcohol license, and was available.”
The history of the Hippodrome
The Hippodrome, designed by renowned architect Frank Matcham, who laid its foundations in 1898, is a landmark building in London, both because of its location, and its history.
“The location and history are intertwined; it was because of the location that it kept getting reinvented,” Thomas comments. “And because it kept getting reinvented, it was incredibly well-known. It opened in 1900 as an indoor circus. It had a 24-metre-wide swimming pool in its basement, it had elephants, seals, and sea lions.
“Charlie Chaplin was in the cast as a child actor on the opening night. Houdini came to London in 1904 and wanted to play the Hippodrome.”
“In 1909 came the first change, when its water tank was covered over, and it was turned into a more conventional music hall. It had the English premiere of Swan Lake in 1910. The first jazz ever played in the country happened here in 1919.”
Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, it was a music hall:
“In the fifties, it was the home of the Folies Bergère female topless revue, which is quite ironic,” he says. “Our current show, Magic Mike, is effectively a male topless revue.”
Becoming the Hippodrome Casino
In the late fifties, Charles Forte transformed the Hippodrome Theatre into the legendary Talk of the Town, a venue that would showcase stars such as Judy Garland, Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jnr, Ella Fitzgerald, Tom Jones, Keith Richard, and Shirley Bassey:
“It was phenomenal,” Thomas says. “When all that talent moved over to television in the late seventies, Peter Stringfellow came along. He was looking for somewhere to create a British version of Studio 54.”
The world-famous Studio 54 nightclub, located in Midtown Manhattan, came to epitomise the hedonism of the 1970s. What Peter Stringfellow created was Stringfellows Nightclub.
“It was a phenomenal club, to be honest. I was there in the eighties; it was off the charts. He ran it very successfully for a number of years, then sold it to the corporates, and it started spiralling down, as nightclub usage started declining, and the costs started going up. They got themselves into financial difficulties. By 2005, it was a bit of a mess, and had lost its alcohol license.”
Thomas took over that year.
“It took three years to get the planning and permits. We started work physically on-site in July 2009, and spent three years on it,” he says. “It was supposed to be two years and about 35 million pounds. It turned out to be three years and 45 million pounds.”
Transforming a listed site
The work done involved two listed buildings:
“There hadn’t been a great deal of work done to them, other than destroying them, for the last 120 years. It was a challenge. I often get asked, if I knew then what I know now, would I have chosen to do it? I’m not honestly sure that I would.
“When you look back, you condense three years into a lot of pain, but actually, there were lots of incremental steps. We got through that, took the building next door as well, and created a building up the middle, so we actually created quite a lot of space. Even now, people walk in and say, ‘I had no idea it was this big!’”
The Hippodrome Casino covers 80,000 square feet over seven levels.
“We have eight bars,” he says. “We’re just constructing a ninth bar in the basement, and we have two restaurants, one of London’s best steakhouses. Also, we’ve got a new Chinese restaurant, which is superb.
“We have three gaming floors. We have private dining rooms, we have a poker floor, and we have three outdoor terraces. There is a very cool cocktail bar, which I’m sitting in at the moment, and an integrated theatre, which is actually on the original stage platform, but on the first floor where we seat 326 people.”
Magic Mike at the Hippodrome Casino
The show that is currently on at the theatre is incredibly popular:
“It’s phenomenal: Magic Mike Live. We’ve had 1450 performances so far, over 450,000 people have seen it, and it’s still sold out. It’s exactly what people want, and it’s quite indicative of the style of our operation here.”
He adds:
“I view the building as a wall of security. We don’t allow any nonsense; we are very tough on door policy, but inside adults can go to one of London’s best restaurants, one of London’s best shows, one of London’s best poker floors, the best casinos, the best entertainment areas, and so on. For so many people, it’s so many different things.
“For me, it’s a wonderful creation that happens to be in the middle of the busiest part of Westminster. We have 250,000 people a day walk past the front door.”
A prime location
It is, he points out, a phenomenal location:
“We have the pleasure of entertaining about 35,000 customers a week, and I’ve got an incredible team of 750 people who make this place buzz.”
In terms of the demographics, he says:
“Averages are misleading…we don’t have an average visitor. We have nobody under 18, of course; we do proper ID checks, but we have people from 18 through well into the eighties; it’s all very accessible. If you take individual products, the Magic Mike show’s audience is predominantly female and generally younger. But we’ve also had people in their eighties – and a whole range, hen parties, thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth birthdays.”
“If you look at the gaming floor, it’s 80% male, 20% female. The electronic gaming is nearer to a 50/50 split.
“In terms of age spread, casinos aren’t really places, in terms of gambling, for younger people, though the bars and Magic Mike are. When people are 18 to 25, generally they’re slightly cash-poor. When they get into their thirties to fifties, which is probably the sweet spot, they’ve got a bit more disposable income, and want a bit of excitement.”
And excitement is what the Hippodrome Casino sells.
Selling excitement
“We sell entertainment, we sell excitement,” Thomas comments. “For somebody going to Magic Mike, their excitement is that show. For somebody who wants a really cool cocktail bar, or to be on a roof terrace in the centre of London when it’s slightly warm, that’s their excitement. We’ve created a building with a load of experiences within.
“In short, we entertain everybody.”
The Magic Mike show is a diversification of the Hippodrome Casino’s offerings. Commenting on how he identifies the zeitgeist and keeps things fresh concerning additions, Thomas says:
“We have an overall umbrella, and within it, we want to have a whole range of exciting products. We’re quite brave; if we have an area that’s good but we can find a way of doing it better, we will do it. Magic Mike was an evolution of a range of shows where we were just becoming better, and we took the plunge on it.
“It was a 7-million-pound investment, and a massive rebuild in the middle of an active casino to re-scaffold the middle of the fascia of the proscenium arch: quite intimidating, for me.
“But the customers like the fact that you are reinvesting, and changing.”
Constant innovation
He looks at the building as a Forth Bridge:
“By the time you complete one improvement, you have to start again. We are always changing, always innovating, always refurbishing. The customers can see it. The staff, too, like to see change. They like to see that excitement of reinvestment.”
He gives an example:
“We’re taking out the main bar on the ground floor completely. We realised that we didn’t need it and that there are better ways of delivering drinks to the customers on the gaming floor. That gives us space to bring in a new product, which is called Lightning Roulette. Keeping fresh is very much in our DNA because I have a very low boredom threshold!
“I need to be busy, and I’ve got a brilliant team of people who think the same, so we never stand still.”
Moving with the trends at the Hippodrome Casino
Offering his insights into emerging trends he perceives in the leisure experience space, he says:
“It’s not new news that what people are looking for now is experience. In the past, people would want a new phone or a new white good, but those days are gone. People want something sexy, something fun.”
“Interestingly, I get asked quite often if I plan to put a Virtual Reality experience in the Hippodrome, and I always say, ‘Why? This is the experience: just walking in here.’
“You’re walking into a 60-foot Victorian atrium. By the time I got it, all the original plasterwork had been stripped off the ceiling – a real shame, as it was a stunning original Frank Matcham design. We recreated it – all the plasterwork, right down to the last detail – using the original plans. It is truly brilliant when you walk in, and – brace yourself – we won the 2015 Fibrous Plasterwork Award.”
Offering the unexpected
The Hippodrome Casino’s USP can be identified, he suggests, as excellence:
“When people walk into the main atrium, they invariably go, ‘Wow. I was not expecting that.’ Then, again, when they go into the basement and we’ve got a cool show on or we’re showing the NFL they say ‘Wow: I wasn’t expecting that.’ The basement is where the original water tank was, so it has a history.
“In terms of the steakhouse, if you look on TripAdvisor, you’ll see so many comments where people are saying, ‘It’s the best steak I’ve ever had.’ They don’t expect that level of excellence in a casino. And then there’s the roof terrace, which is, again, another ‘wow’ moment.”
The hardest thing, he explains, is marketing:
“You say, ‘Come to the Hippodrome Casino: it’s got bars, restaurants, live entertainment.’ People get stuck on the word ‘casino’, and they assume it’s just gambling. When people have been here, they’re actually excited to bring their friends. I love it when I see people pointing out where the dwarves used to dive from, or whatever.
“That referral marketing is far more powerful than anything I could do, and has really driven the business forward.”
The people are the key at the Hippodrome Casino
However, the real differentiator, he maintains, is the people:
“The Hippodrome Casino only employs people who smile. It sounds a bit trite, but somebody who smiles under the pressure of an interview is probably somebody who’s a glass-half-full person, one who looks for solutions, not problems. We really instil in our team that they are the experience. A roulette table is a roulette table, a pint of Budweiser is a pint of Budweiser, and a steak is a steak, generally, – though ours are better – but the way they are delivered is fundamental.
“If you have two identical shops selling the same products, one where the staff are wonderful, one where the staff are grumpy, the difference is huge.”
“My executive directors and I meet every new person joining the business on their induction day. We give them a little essence of the history of the place and of the ethos, of the style. We remind them that it might be the end of the shift, they might be eight hours into a shift, they’ve had a couple of grumpy customers, they’ve been under pressure, they’ve been busy, and a new person walks in.
“If they give that person eight hours’ worth of tiredness, it’s going to be a completely different experience to them from being greeted as if they’re the first person they’ve seen that day, and they’re excited to see them. When you get people that can perform like that, the customer experience is just at a different level.”
The new late-night economy
Turning to the concept that places like the Hippodrome Casino are one of the new mainstays of the nighttime high street economy, he says:
“I think this is something that has happened. In shopping centres, you obviously have the anchor tenant, a big store that pulls people through, and all the other shops feed off it. Something that became completely evident during the COVID lockdown was the fact that when we were closed, the impact on the local economy was devastating.
“Café owners were saying, ‘I can’t wait for you to open, because you pull people into the area.’ In a funny way, we are the anchor tenant of a late-night economy in this area.”
“With all the deregulation casinos had, there was one of the old rules that should have been changed, which is the one limiting the number of gaming, or slot, machines. Even though I’m an enormous concern with 1500 customers at peak times, I’ve only got 20 gaming machines.
“The economics of a British casino are a bit more challenging than their European and international counterparts. There is a change in gaming legislation on the horizon this year which will allow casinos to have a more serious number of slot machines. This will change the economics, creating more Hippodrome-style casinos, which are more multifaceted entertainment/bar/restaurant complexes.
“I think that will help drive the late-night economy in quite a lot of towns and cities.”
Riding the wave
On the subject of the economic crisis, he comments:
“We’re seeing our utility bills going up, and getting staff is slightly harder, but we’re a good employer. We pay well and look after our team, so we’ve got a pretty full team. In terms of customer spend, we’re probably a level above where the impact’s being felt. We’re not high-end, but we’re the premium mass side, and we’re not attracting the younger people who are probably more affected, so we’re riding it.
“What often happens in economic slowdowns is people cut back on spending on the big ticket items, but they still want their entertainment. We tend to be a little bit more recession-proof than a lot of industries.”
Turning to plans for the future, he says:
“In the short term, we plan continual change. We’ve been open for over 10 years and we’ve never stopped changing. I’m currently taking out one bar on the main floor to create more gaming space. I’m building an uber-cool secret bar, two floors from where I’m sitting now. Guests will access it through a vending machine in the back of the Chinese restaurant.
“It’s designed by Rachel O’Toole, who is just a genius. We’re currently calling it ‘The Archive and the Myth’, and it’s going to be special.”
Extending the Hippodrome Casino
In the medium term, having used all the space in the building and refurbished everything, the plan is to go up:
“We are looking to put in a planning application. We’re doing pre-app at the moment to put another floor on top of the original Victorian roof. It isn’t strong enough to support anything. So, the idea is to put a steel frame over it, and to create a 200-cover restaurant/bar/casino on the roof of the original theatre.”
He adds:
“It’s a nightmare building because it’s so big and old. But it’s a fantastic building because it’s a nightmare: it makes it exciting. Right above the front door, there’s a cupola. Frank Matcham liked doing big things on the top of his buildings. The Coliseum’s got the rotating globe. The Palace Theatre’s got the ballerina, and here we have a big cupola with Boudicca on top, driving her horses.
“I’ve always had a desire to hold a dinner party in the cupola.”
Beyond that, Thomas stresses:
“We will keep changing, we’ll keep improving, and we’ll keep developing.”
All images kind courtesy of Hippodrome Casino
