Crockfords sat on Curzon Street for so long that it predated the postage stamp. Founded in 1828 by William Crockford, a fishmonger’s son who relieved Regency aristocrats of their fortunes over hazard and whist, the club survived two world wars and every recession since the railway age. It could not survive the 2020s. When owner Genting confirmed the closure in 2023, the oldest of Mayfair’s casinos had simply run out of the customers it was built for.
Three closures, one pattern
The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square shut in 2018. The Ritz Club, the gilded casino beneath the Ritz hotel on Piccadilly, followed in 2020. Crockfords made it three in 2023. Around 100 jobs went with it, after 195 years of continuous play.
Genting’s statement at the time was unusually candid for a corporate obituary. A “combination of factors”, it said, had put high-end London casinos “at a competitive disadvantage to other global marketplaces”. The Mayfair operation, it concluded, faced “an unsustainable future”. The strange part is which end of the market failed. These clubs were the summit of British gambling, and the summit went first.
Where Mayfair’s high rollers went
The staple customer of the private Mayfair casino was the visiting player from the Gulf, with a supporting cast from East Asia. That trade began thinning well before the pandemic and never properly returned.
Some of the reasons are stubbornly practical. In 2021 the government scrapped VAT-free shopping for international visitors, and the luxury trip that once ran through Bond Street, a Park Lane suite and a private gaming table became measurably cheaper to take in Paris or Milan. The competition has also multiplied. Monaco and Macau never went away, and the Gulf itself is now building an industry of its own: Wynn Resorts is due to open the region’s first legal casino resort in Ras Al Khaimah in 2027, which means the players London lost may soon find a table an hour’s drive from home.
It is tempting to fold all this into the story of a millionaire exodus from Britain, hastened by the abolition of the non-dom regime and changes to inheritance tax. The evidence is murkier than the headlines suggest. Henley & Partners, the firm whose annual reports fuelled much of that narrative, described departures in its 2026 wealth-migration report as modest and concentrated, more contingency planning than relocation. The chronology is awkward for the theory too: the Clermont and the Ritz Club closed years before anyone had drafted a non-dom reform. Whatever London’s wealthy residents decide to do, it was the wealthy visitors who stopped coming first.
The market changed shape, not size
Here is the part the closures conceal: Britain gambles more now than it did when Crockfords was full. The wager did not leave the city. It left the building.
The move changed who does the vetting. A Mayfair club decided at the door whether a player was fit for the room. The modern player makes the equivalent judgement about the operator instead, checking licences and payout terms before committing a deposit, often through comparisons such as this in-depth rundown of the UK’s regulated sites. The velvet rope became a checklist.
The scale of the shift shows in the Gambling Commission’s industry statistics. Gross gambling yield across Britain reached £16.8 billion in the year to March 2025, up 7.3 per cent on the year before. The land-based sector accounts for £4.8 billion of that. The remote sector takes £7.8 billion, nearly half the entire market. For the venues still standing, volume beats exclusivity: the Hippodrome on Leicester Square trades on tourists and low-stakes tables rather than seven-figure baccarat, and that end of the business was never the fragile part.
The last man standing bought in
Mayfair has not emptied entirely. Les Ambassadeurs and the Palm Beach still deal cards, and the most interesting recent move points the other way. In 2025 Crown Resorts sold Crown London Aspinalls to Wynn Resorts, which is rebranding the Curzon Street club as Wynn Mayfair. An American resort group does not buy a private London casino out of nostalgia. It is betting that once the shakeout ends, the survivors inherit whatever high-stakes trade remains, and that a Mayfair address carries a premium precisely because there are fewer of them.
Perhaps that bet comes good. The wider lesson of the past six years, though, is that London’s gambling economy no longer needs marble rooms to function. The chandeliers were never the product. The game was, and the game found cheaper premises.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or gambling advice. Readers should carry out their own research before making any financial or wagering decisions. Gambling should only be undertaken responsibly by those aged 18 or over.