Two Separate Poker Channels Under One Brand
“Hippodrome poker” can mean two different products, and it helps to separate them before you decide where to play. PokerStars LIVE at The Hippodrome is the brick-and-mortar poker room on the third floor of the venue at Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, London WC2H 7JH. Hippodrome Online Casino is a regulated web platform that runs in your browser and hosts video poker plus casino-style poker tables. The two share branding and some contact details, but hold different licences and cater to different use cases.
In simple terms: if you are in London and want to sit in a real game against other players for cash, you head to the live room. If you are at home and feel like Three-Card Poker or video poker from a laptop or phone browser, you use the online casino site. Neither side is required to access the other.
PokerStars LIVE at The Hippodrome
The live poker room is one of the more serious, regular venues in the UK cash-game scene. It keeps long hours - Monday to Friday from 12:00 until 06:00, then non-stop 24-hour action from Friday through to Monday morning. Cash tables run at several stake levels.
| Parameter | Detail |
|---|---|
| Location | 3rd floor, Hippodrome Casino, Leicester Square, London WC2H 7JH |
| Hours | Mon-Fri 12:00-06:00; Fri-Mon 24 hours continuous |
| Cash game stakes | £1/£2, £2/£5, £5/£10, £25/£50, £50/£100 |
| Buy-in range | £50 minimum; up to £5,000 at mid-stakes; no cap at £50/£100 |
| Tournament floor | Lola’s Underground Casino, lower ground floor |
| Phone | 0207 769 8888 |
| [email protected] |
The room is on the PokerStars international live circuit and hosts stops from its major tours. At the top end of the stakes list - the £50/£100 games - there is no fixed upper buy-in. That single detail puts it apart from most UK poker rooms, which usually cap how deep players can sit. At the same time, standard £1/£2 recreational games go alongside these tables, so the spread from entry level to high stakes is genuinely broad.
Tournament play uses a different part of the building. Scheduled events run in Lola’s Underground Casino on the lower ground floor, while the primary poker room upstairs focuses on cash only. It is worth a quick look at @PSLive_Hippo on X or the HippodromeLivePoker channel on YouTube before making a trip; both channels tend to carry the latest schedule details, plus rough information on table availability.
Hippodrome Online Casino: What “Poker” Actually Covers
Online play under the Hippodrome brand sits on a platform operated by Betway Limited in partnership with Hippodrome Casino Limited. It holds a UKGC licence (039372-R-319367-026) alongside an MGA licence (MGA/B2C/130/2006). Software is supplied by Games Global, NetEnt, Evolution, and Blueprint.
On this site, poker means video poker and house-banked poker-style games. So you get things like Three-Card Poker and Heads-Up Hold’em as table games. There is no peer-to-peer poker room, no multi-table tournament lobby, and no traditional online cash-game area in which you join other remote players. If online MTTs and ring games against other people are what you want, the route is straight to PokerStars itself - even Hippodrome-branded promotions direct you that way for real online poker.
| Online Casino Parameter | Detail |
|---|---|
| Regulator | UKGC + MGA |
| UKGC Licence | 039372-R-319367-026 |
| MGA Licence | MGA/B2C/130/2006 |
| Operator | Betway Limited |
| Game count | 450+ (brand site); 1,300+ (third-party sources) |
| Minimum deposit | £20 |
| Minimum withdrawal | £20 |
| Currency | GBP |
| Mobile access | Browser-optimised; no dedicated native app |
One of the neater touches on the online side is the way live dealer tables are streamed from the real Hippodrome casino floor. Roulette and blackjack are dealt in the actual building, with feeds pushed to your browser, so you see the venue rather than a generic studio. For players who like to know there is a real casino attached, that feels different from a white-label live lobby.
Payment Methods
For deposits and withdrawals the site supports five payment types: Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Trustly, and Truelayer. Payout speed shifts with each method, ranging from near instant to roughly 3 working days once the withdrawal is approved. There is no detailed fee list promoted on the public pages, so before moving larger sums it is sensible to read the most current terms on the cashier or help section; rules around charges sometimes change.
Registering and Reaching the Poker-Style Games
Account creation on Hippodrome Online Casino follows the usual UK-licensed pattern. Nothing strange in the flow, though the verification stage can hold things up if documents need manual checking. Having ID ready tends to keep that part cleaner.
Typical sequence looks like this:
- Go to hippodromecasino.com and open the online gaming section.
- Hit the registration button, then complete the account form with name, date of birth, address and email.
- Choose a username and a password that meets the stated criteria.
- Add a working UK mobile number so the site can send verification codes.
- Accept the terms and conditions, then set your responsible gambling preferences.
- Complete identity checks if the site asks for it - standard UKGC KYC rules apply.
- When the account shows as active, go to the Cashier area and make a first deposit using one of the listed methods.
The platform sets a £20 minimum deposit and the same figure as the minimum withdrawal. As soon as the balance updates, the full lobby is accessible. To go straight to poker content, use the table games filter in the main menu; casino poker variants and video poker titles sit in that section, not in their own separate lobby. The layout is not always intuitive on a first visit, so using filters usually cuts a few minutes of scrolling.
One general point: if this is a new site for you, look through the responsible gambling settings before you start playing rather than later. Deposit caps, time-based session limits and similar controls are faster to set up at the beginning, and most UK-licensed brands already place these options within the sign-up or first-login process.