Grand Casino Brussels

Just wrote up a blog entry on visit to the Grand Casino Brussels. This is my first WoO blog entry in over a year. Please have a look and let me know what you think. I welcome all suggestions. At this point, it is still a first draft so I'm open to making changes.

That was an excellent read! I thouroughly enjoyed your writing as it put me right there with you because of your great descriptions. Bravo Mike!

It seems super confusing that they let anyone bet on any spot reguardless of where they are sitting or even if they aren't playing.

Good Read.

Looking forward to the Amsterdam review!

Thanks for the compliments!

Quote: gamerfreak

It seems super confusing that they let anyone bet on any spot reguardless of where they are sitting or even if they aren't playing.

I agree 100%. The whole side bet was just a nightmare and I could tell the dealer saw it that way when I finally had a moment to talk with him candidly after everyone else left. It was one of those "red light" side bets that light up if a bet is placed on it. My advice would be that if the must have a side bet, have back betting spots for it as they do the main blackjack wager. However, when there is only one casino in a huge city there isn't the incentive to make logical decisions as in a competitive environment.

I enjoyed reading that

Under "Drink Service", change "strongly" to "strong".

Re: "trepidatious". Nothing wrong with it, but "apprehensive" might have worked better. Not sure what tone you were shooting for, though.

Otherwise, I was sitting at the table with you.

Thanks for the fun and interesting read Wizard! I have lots of questions. Did you get a sense that most of the players were locals or tourists? Who owns the joint? I wonder if the competition for the rights to open the single location was intense. I didn't see a mention of a high-limit or VIP room. Did it have one? Was the smoking intense or was the air filtration pretty good?

Was there a theme to the decor? It looks like there are two huge liquor bottles framing the ground floor entrance. Were the signs and table printing in French and German?

As, literally, the only game in town, and with so much space dedicated to it, one would think the poker room would be running all the time. Are there cards only salons just as there are slots only places?

Is it Euros only or can folks buy in with dollars or pounds? Did you bring any chips or jetons home as souvenirs?

When you mention side bets (for BJ and Roulette) it would be nice if you told us the house edge instead of requiring us to click the link to find out. Obviously not a critical problem.

Great write up! Always enjoy hearing about foreign places and their rule/payout differences. Single 0 roulette with half back on even money bets sounds like a better game than the pass line in craps =).

From memory the Brussels one is the newest as I've been to all the other eight ( https://www.casinosavenue.com/en/casinos/globalSearch/?country=belgium&idCountry=14&page=1 ). Indeed Belgium is fairly small and I managed to see them all in a [long] day.

As you say the thing that they tend to have is the betting circles at the Blackjack tables where players can play behind others. The chips tend to be 5 10 then 20 50 100, except the roulette uses the French style of jetons. Also 5-card Stud Poker seems to be fairly common. Interestingly two of the casinos are owned by Grosvenor (UK).

I haven't been to so many in the Netherlands but they used to be run by the government. I've usually been charged 5 to get in, but apparently if you go enough times in a year they give you a card to get in free. One strange thing is they don't use less than 5c, so if you win an odd amount they should round it up (supermarkets round to nearest, unless you're paying by card).

All the ones I have been in will make a copy of your passport and keep a record. In some cases they give you a card, which expires a year later. It is also confusing that some places call themselves "casinos" when only being a fruit machine place.

Thanks Mosca for those corrections/suggestions.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Thanks for the fun and interesting read Wizard! I have lots of questions. Did you get a sense that most of the players were locals or tourists? Who owns the joint? I wonder if the competition for the rights to open the single location was intense. I didn't see a mention of a high-limit or VIP room. Did it have one? Was the smoking intense or was the air filtration pretty good?

I felt the vast majority of players were locals. The place is not advertised well and I think the tourists don't know about it. I don't know who owns it. Might be the government but privately managed. I don't recall any high-limit rooms. Smokers were relegated to little smoking rooms. The air outside these smoking chambers was quite clean.

Quote:

Was there a theme to the decor? It looks like there are two huge liquor bottles framing the ground floor entrance. Were the signs and table printing in French and German?

No theme that I picked up on. The table felts I recall being in English. As usual, the slots were in English. I didn't need to read anything there but I would imagine that any signage would probably be in French and Dutch.

Quote:

As, literally, the only game in town, and with so much space dedicated to it, one would think the poker room would be running all the time. Are there cards only salons just as there are slots only places?

It wasn't that big, especially for the only casino in the whole city. I don't recall any machine-only casinos in Brussels. Saw lots of them in Amsterdam.

Quote:

Is it Euros only or can folks buy in with dollars or pounds? Did you bring any chips or jetons home as souvenirs?

Euros only. No, I didn't bring home any chips.

Grand Casino Brussels Viage is one of 67 properties owned by Casinos Austria International.

Grand Casino Brussels Viage is in Brussels, Bruxelles-Capitale, Belgium and is open Sun-Thu noon-4am, Fri-Sat noon-5am.
The casino's gaming space features 375 gaming machines and forty-nine table and poker games. The property has one restaurant and one bar.

Quote: Wizard

As usual, outside the United States, video poker was not popular.

Not being a world traveler, I didn't know.

Is there any particular reason for this?