Grosvenor Casino Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays - Gaming and Dining

What We Offer at Gunwharf Quays

Our casino sits inside the Gunwharf Quays waterfront complex in Portsmouth, Hampshire, right in the middle of the shops, bars and restaurants. It is the kind of place where you can settle in for the whole night without feeling like you need to move on: gaming, poker, a full restaurant, bar service, and regular events, all in the same building.

The address registered with the UK Gambling Commission is R19 and Lo5 Central Square South Building, Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth, PO1 3TW. Some directories use PO1 3TZ for the wider complex. Both postcodes point you to the same location, so you are not heading somewhere else by mistake.

We operate as a licensed casino under Grosvenor Casinos Limited, which holds account number 614 with the British Gambling Commission. Our local licensing authority is Portsmouth City Council. Grosvenor Casinos Limited is part of The Rank Group plc, headquartered at TOR, Saint-Cloud Way, Maidenhead, SL6 8BN. That structure means our gaming, poker and hospitality sit firmly within the UK regulatory framework for land-based casinos, without any grey areas or off-the-record activity.

The venue has been through around £2,500,000 of renovations, and you can see that investment in how the place looks and feels. Gunwharf Quays itself is a mixed-use waterfront spot - retail, dining and entertainment all in one loop - and our casino sits naturally inside that flow. If you live in Portsmouth or you are just down for a few days, it usually becomes part of your evening rather than a random detour.

Casino Gaming and Poker

Gaming is at the centre of what we do. We operate as a casino premises under the Gambling Commission’s categories, which covers the main floor gaming activity. Alongside table and machine play, we run a structured poker offering with fixed tournament days and regular cash sessions.

Our poker room has 2 tables. Poker runs on a schedule rather than around-the-clock open tables. At the moment, our core hours for scheduled poker are Sunday and Friday from 4:00 pm through to 11:00 pm. There is no poker on Mondays. That pattern is worth noting if you are planning a trip that depends heavily on live poker.

Tournament poker has a real presence at the venue. Across our calendar, buy-ins typically sit in the £150 to £225 range, using standard Texas Hold’em formats. Events come with defined re-entry rules and published prize pool guarantees. Daily cash games usually start from 20:00, with blinds from 25p to £1, so players can ease in without jumping straight into very high stakes.

The Christmas Cracker South runs across multiple starting days, including Day 1B and Day 1E, with a £100,000 guaranteed prize pool. The New Year Special Progressive Bounty uses a 100+100+25 buy-in split, starts players with a 25,000 stack, allows re-entry, and works to a fixed blind level structure. The Portsmouth Winter Special is a multi-day Texas Hold’em series with set start times and level durations.

If you are coming for a specific tournament, it is always worth checking the latest published schedule before you set off. On bigger tournament days, table space and timings can feel very different compared to a standard cash-only evening.

A practical habit that helps in any poker room: arriving 20 to 30 minutes before your session starts. That usually gives enough time to register, sort any membership or ID checks, see where everything is, and sit down without feeling rushed when the first hand is dealt.

Restaurant, Bar and Events

We run a full restaurant on site with an à la carte menu. Dishes on rotation include options like beef massaman curry for mains and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. We also serve Barrel and Stone stone-baked pizzas. OpenTable lists our restaurant under British cuisine, and the typical spend lands in the £26 to £40 per person band.

The kitchen is open daily from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm. The broader casino floor operates from 7:00 pm until 2:00 am every day. Those two time frames are not identical on purpose. The restaurant closes earlier than the gaming, so if a sit-down meal is important for your night, it is better to aim for the earlier part of service. Guests arriving at 9:00 pm expecting a long, relaxed dinner sometimes find the kitchen already starting to wind down.

Alongside food and drink, we put on different types of events through the year, for both smaller groups and more organised nights:

1. Quiz nights - regular general knowledge evenings, open to mixed groups and individual players.
2. Ladies nights - themed nights built around socialising with added entertainment.
3. Theatre trips - group outings organised through the casino with planned timings.
4. Conference and event room hire - space available for business meetings, private functions and parties.

We actively position the venue for private gatherings and festive celebrations, and the calendar tends to reflect that, especially across key holiday periods. Parking for casino customers is available within the wider Gunwharf Quays centre, so you can park once for shopping, eating, and gaming. Poker listings for the venue also reference a 24-hour valet service, which removes a lot of the friction from late-night visits and end-of-evening departures.

Planning Your Visit

Getting to us is usually straightforward. Gunwharf Quays is reachable by road, rail and ferry, and the complex has its own parking on-site. We are based in the Central Square South Building and signposted as part of the leisure area inside the development.

It helps to sort a few practical details before you arrive so the evening runs smoother:

1. Check if there is a poker tournament on the date you want to visit. Tournament nights change how busy the room is and what tables are available.
2. Bring a valid photo ID that confirms you are 18 or over. This is a legal requirement for all casino premises in the UK, and we do work within that.
3. If you plan to eat in the restaurant, remember that service runs from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Arriving before 7:00 pm usually gives you the most relaxed dinner window.
4. For live poker on Fridays or Sundays, plan around the 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm schedule. There is no Monday poker, so it is better not to base a Monday trip on card play.
5. For parties, event bookings or conference room use, contacting us in advance rather than on the same night makes it easier to secure the space and set the details.

For general venue queries, the contact number listed by Gunwharf Quays is 02392 732277. For restaurant reservations, you can use 023 9277 7030. Those two lines serve different roles, so picking the right one usually gets you to the information or booking you need a bit faster. For written enquiries to management, the email address is [email protected].

Our Portsmouth Location in Context

Grosvenor Casino Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays is one part of the broader Grosvenor Casinos network, operated by Grosvenor Casinos Limited under The Rank Group. The Rank Group manages multiple Grosvenor-branded casinos across the UK - including sites in Brighton, Salford, Reading, Manchester and more - all under the same Gambling Commission account. Each venue, including ours, runs as a distinct licensed premises overseen by its local authority.

You might see our Portsmouth venue appear in some poker listings under the “Grosvenor G Casino” label. That is just a sub-brand name used across a selection of Grosvenor locations. It is not a separate company or second casino. It is the same Gunwharf Quays premises and the same team on the floor.

The Gunwharf Quays setting itself shapes how people use the casino. Visitors who come for the outlet shopping, the waterfront food, or a general night out can step straight into the casino without having to head off to a different part of the city. That connection to a larger retail and entertainment environment is something a standalone site does not really copy. For most of our guests it becomes an evening destination with gaming, food, drinks and social time, not just a single-purpose gambling stop.

If you want information about the wider Grosvenor Casinos network, loyalty programmes or corporate membership offers, those details are available at grosvenorcasinos.com. Our Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays venue has its own local page in the casino finder section, with current promotions, tournament dates and event details updated by the operator as schedules change.