Three floors, three entirely different things, and it is worth knowing which one you want before you come through the door. The ground floor is a snooker hall — a sport, not a gambling service, and no money games between patrons are permitted anywhere in it. The first floor is a licensed card room where members play each other. The second floor is a casino, where anyone plays the house. Separate permissions, separate staff, separate stairs.
Ground floor
The hall
A snooker hall since 1962 and a good deal of it has not changed since. Nine full-size Thurstons recovered every eighteen months, the original shades over them, the original parquet underfoot. Four American pool tables along the Bromsgrove Street wall. Heating adequate rather than generous; regulars know to keep a jumper on in January.
It is a quiet room by design. Sound carries badly off a hard floor and a twelve-foot table, so the house convention is that you keep your voice down while a frame is on the next table. Nobody enforces this. Everybody does it.
Six of the nine are open to walk-in play. Three are held for league fixtures on match nights, and table two — the one with the match lighting — is bookable by the hour when the leagues are not using it.
No music. No machine of any kind on this floor. No television except during the World Championship, when there is exactly one and it is in the bar.
| Chalk | On the table. Take one, leave one. |
|---|---|
| Drinks | Never on the cushion rail. Side tables exist for a reason. |
| Rest and spider | Under the table, not on the floor. |
| Coats | Off. Nobody plays in a coat. |
| Never played | Say so at the desk. You get a quiet table away from the league end and somebody will show you. |
| Under-18s | Welcome in the hall until 19:00 with an adult, and at the Saturday junior session. Cannot be served at the bar or use the upper floors. |
| Bar | Four rotating cask lines, usually two local. A permanent 3.8% house bitter. Stout on nitro year round. Two lagers, one Czech. Still cider and keg cider. Full soft and low-alcohol range at no upcharge. |
| Food | Until 21:00. Melton pork pie with piccalilli, doorstep sandwiches in four fillings, a scotch egg made up the road, the chip cob which outsells everything, and a weekend ploughman’s. |
Table tariff
Charged by the hour and started at the desk. Lights go on when you start and off when you finish; nobody is timed out mid-frame. Off-peak is before 17:00 on weekdays. Peak is weekday evenings and all day at weekends. Cue hire is free; lockers are available to members at a rate posted at the desk.
| Table | Off-peak | Peak | Member | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snooker, 1–6 | £7.00 | £10.50 | £6.00 | Walk-in, no booking |
| Snooker, table 2 (match) | £9.00 | £13.00 | £7.50 | Bookable, match lighting |
| Snooker, 7–9 | League use on match nights | Open to all otherwise | ||
| American pool | £5.50 | £8.00 | £4.50 | Four tables, walk-in |
| Coaching table | £25.00 | £25.00 | £20.00 | Coach included, book ahead |
All rates per hour. Table time is the price of playing a sport and is not a stake of any kind.
First floor
The card room
One room, three tables, at the back. It operates under a Gambling Commission licence and is open to members and signed-in guests only. This is the floor where you play the other people at the table — dealt cash games and a Sunday tournament, with the house taking a capped rake and nothing else.
| What runs | Two tables of no-limit hold’em cash at £1/£2, a third opening at £2/£5 when there is demand, and a Sunday tournament. Buy-in levels are posted at the card room desk. |
|---|---|
| Hours | Thursday to Sunday, 19:00 until 01:00. Closed Monday to Wednesday regardless of demand, because the room shares staff with the hall. |
| Getting a seat | Paper list at the card room desk. Members take priority until 21:00; after that strictly order of arrival. |
| Buy-ins | Cash and debit at the desk only, never at the table. Minimum forty big blinds, maximum two hundred. No credit is offered to anyone, ever. |
| Age | Strictly 18+. Photo ID on first entry and on any visit where staff are not certain. Think 25 throughout the building. |
| Machines | None on this floor. |
Second floor
The casino
Storage until 2018. It is a casino room now — house-banked tables and a bank of machines, licensed separately from both the hall downstairs and the card room below it.
One thing here is not true of the card room, and it is the thing people most often get wrong: you do not need to be a member to use this floor. Any adult with photo ID can go up. Membership buys table time in the hall; it buys nothing whatever up here and confers no advantage in any game.
What is actually running on a given night, and at what stakes, is best asked of the desk on the landing rather than read off this page — it changes with the week. What does not change: every game on this floor is banked by the Holland Casino & Hotel, so the house is the other side of your bet and the margin is ours. House edge and payout tables are printed at every table and by the cash desk. Machine stake and prize limits are set by statute, not by us, and every machine is sited in view of the desk with no cash machine installed on the floor.
Chips are bought at the cash desk on the landing with cash or debit. Nothing is sold at a table, no credit is offered to anyone, and nothing is held as security. Think 25 applies at the stair as well as the street door; under-18s who use the hall by day cannot come up here at any hour.
The week, floor by floor
| Day | Hall | Card room | Casino | On |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 10:00–00:00 | Closed | Closed | City snooker league, tables 7–9, from 19:30 |
| Tue | 10:00–00:00 | Closed | Closed | Coaching evening, beginners welcome, 18:00–21:00 |
| Wed | 10:00–00:00 | Closed | 18:00–02:00 | Pool league from 19:30. Quietest night on the snooker tables |
| Thu | 10:00–00:00 | 19:00–01:00 | 18:00–02:00 | Open practice. Card room £1/£2 |
| Fri | 10:00–01:00 | 19:00–01:00 | 18:00–02:00 | Busiest in the hall. Both cash tables running, casino floor busy |
| Sat | 10:00–01:00 | 19:00–01:00 | 18:00–02:00 | Handicap snooker knockout once a month |
| Sun | 10:00–23:00 | 19:00–00:00 | 18:00–02:00 | Card room tournament, 19:30 start |
League fixtures go up on the board by the desk each Monday. Visiting teams should arrive by 19:15 so tables can be brushed and ironed before the first frame. Confirm fixtures by email at least a week ahead.
Membership
Membership runs for a year and is arranged at the desk, where the current subscription is posted. It is a rate card for the hall and a league entitlement — nothing more. It gives no advantage of any kind at a card table and none whatever in the casino.
| Class | Hall rate | First floor | Second floor | Leagues | Guests |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-member | Standard | No access | Open, 18+ with ID | Not eligible | — |
| Hall member | Member rate, all hours | Access, 18+ with ID | Open, 18+ with ID | Eligible | Two per visit |
| Concession | Member rate, off-peak | Access, 18+ with ID | Open, 18+ with ID | Eligible | Two per visit |
Concession covers over-65s, students and the unwaged. Lockers available to members, rate at the desk.
The desk
| Hall desk | 0121 496 0148 | From 10:00 daily |
|---|---|---|
| Card room | 0121 496 0162 | From 18:30, Thu–Sun |
| Casino landing | 0121 496 0175 | From 17:30, Wed–Sun |
| General | desk@crownandcuelounge.com | Two working days |
| Leagues | leagues@crownandcuelounge.com | Captains, a week ahead |
| Coaching | coaching@crownandcuelounge.com | Tuesday sessions |
Table two and the coaching table are bookable by phone during hall hours. Everything else in the hall is walk-in. Card room and casino seats are never reserved. Self-exclusion is arranged at the hall desk or either gaming desk — it can cover the casino, the card room or both while leaving the snooker hall and bar entirely open to you, and it is honoured at the door.
Playing safely
Both gaming floors are licensed by the Gambling Commission and run to its conditions. That means age verification, no credit, staff trained to spot harm, and a duty to intervene when someone is playing beyond what they intended. If a member of staff asks whether you want to take a break, it is not a judgement and it is not a hint to leave.
Set a limit before you sit down and stop when you reach it. Never gamble money you need for something else and never play to win back a loss. Free confidential advice is available around the clock from GamCare on the National Gambling Helpline, 0808 8020 133, and from BeGambleAware.
18+ · Think 25 · Take time to think · begambleaware.org