The Aspers group has won the right to build a new super-casino in Southampton following a multi-year competition.
On Tuesday, Aspers announced it had been awarded the “large” casino license for Southampton’s proposed Royal Pier Waterfront development, beating out rivals Grosvenor, Global Gaming Ventures and Kymeira.
The new casino, the last of the eight large casino licenses the UK government intends to issue, will feature up to 150 electronic gaming machines and 30 gaming tables spread across a 1k-square-meter gaming floor. The project is expected to create at least 180 local jobs.
Aspers has agreed to pay £100k to the local council upon receipt of the license, plus another £150k when the £450m Royal Pier Waterfront project opens in 2021. The authority will also receive at least 2% of the casino’s gross gambling revenue while Aspers has agreed to pay an annual £50k towards the new Community Action for Responsible Gambling forum.
Matt Tucker, chairman of the city council’s licensing committee, said the new casino would “play a big part” in the redevelopment of the waterfront at Royal Pier and Mayflower Park. Tucker claimed the casino tender had been “the largest and most complex competition nationally,” and the amount of ‘high-level competition” had allowed the city to identify Aspers as “the operator that we believe can deliver the most.”
Aspers chairman Damian Aspinall said his company was “delighted” to have won the Southampton concession, expanding on the company’s two existing large casino operations at Westfield Stratford in London and Milton Keynes, in addition to its other venues in Newcastle and Northampton.
