The oldest casinos in the world

Several casinos claim to be the oldest in the world, and the claims are not directly comparable. One rests on the continuity of a licensed business, another on the age of the building, a third on uninterrupted operation at the same address. Setting the claims side by side is more useful than picking a winner.

Venice, 1638: the oldest institution

The Ridotto opened in Venice in 1638 in a wing of the Palazzo Dandolo, authorised by the Great Council of the Republic to bring the city's carnival gambling under state supervision and taxation. Entry required a tricorn hat and a mask, dress rules that functioned as a social filter, and the games were primarily card games of the period.

The Ridotto was closed in 1774 by the Council itself, on the grounds that it was impoverishing the nobility. The modern Casinò di Venezia traces its lineage to that institution, and it holds the strongest claim to continuity of licensed state-sanctioned gaming, although the operation was not continuous and the present venue occupies a different palace — the Ca' Vendramin Calergi on the Grand Canal.

Baden-Baden, 1820s: the oldest classic salons

Gaming at Baden-Baden began in the Kurhaus in the 1820s as part of a spa economy serving a European travelling class. The salons were redecorated in the style of French royal palaces by the Parisian designer Charles Séchan, and they survive largely intact, which is why the venue is routinely described as the most beautiful casino in Europe rather than the oldest.

Prussia and the other German states banned gambling in 1872, closing Baden-Baden and its peers for decades; the casino reopened after the Second World War. The rooms are therefore older than the business's continuous operation.

Bad Homburg, 1841: where the single zero was introduced

The Blanc brothers, François and Louis, opened a casino at Bad Homburg in 1841 and introduced a roulette wheel with a single zero in place of the prevailing double. The change reduced the house edge, drew players away from rival spa towns, and became the European standard. When Germany banned gambling, François Blanc moved to Monaco, taking the single-zero wheel with him.

Monte-Carlo, 1863: the model for everything after

The Casino de Monte-Carlo opened in 1863 under the Société des Bains de Mer, with a building designed in stages by Charles Garnier, who was also building the Paris opera house. It was conceived as a complete resort — casino, grand hotel, opera house, gardens — rather than as a gaming room, and it established the template that every European resort casino and ultimately the Las Vegas Strip followed.

Monaco's claim is not to age but to influence: the single-zero wheel, the dress code, the salon hierarchy, the seasonal calendar and the practice of funding a state from gaming concessions all reached their mature form there.

The claims compared

Why the nineteenth-century spa town mattered

The pattern repeats across Europe because the licensing logic was the same everywhere: gambling was permitted where it could be contained and taxed, and spa towns were already places where wealthy visitors came for several weeks, needed entertainment in the evenings, and could be observed. French law tied casino licences explicitly to spa and coastal resorts, which is why France has casinos in Enghien-les-Bains, Deauville and Vichy and none in Paris.

The consequence is architectural. European casinos sit in Kurhäuser, palaces and assembly rooms because those buildings already existed for a related purpose. The windowless box is an American invention of the mid-twentieth century, not the historic form of the building type.

Questions

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