What the Club Actually Is
Carlton Casino Club sits at 55/56 O’Connell Street Upper, Dublin 1, right above Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium. It feels very Dublin that a private gaming club lives on top of an amusement arcade - probably not an accident. The club runs as a private members’ venue, focused only on live table games. There are no slot machines on the floor, no electronic roulette terminals tucked in a corner. If you want screens and buttons, you will need a different stop.
Membership is handled at the door. You pay about €20, fill out a short registration form, and that fee is handed straight back to you in chips. So you are not really paying an entry fee in the classic club sense, more putting down a starting stake that unlocks the room. Only registered adults are allowed past the entrance, which keeps the crowd smaller and avoids the random walk-in chaos you get in some more open venues.
Inside, the place leans into an Art Deco look: marble, glass, chandeliers, low lighting. By global casino standards the room is on the smaller side, but here that works. It feels like a single space where people recognise faces, or at least where the dealers clearly recognise their regular players. It does not feel anonymous or like a converted warehouse unit.
| Game Type | What’s Available |
|---|---|
| Table Games | Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat |
| Poker | Separate poker parlour |
| Slots | Not offered |
Hours and Getting In
The club trades Thursday through Monday, running from 9 pm until 5 am on those days. It shuts completely on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Before you build an evening around it, it is worth checking directly with the venue, as some travel and review sites still show older hours that no longer match what is actually happening at the door.
Entry itself is pretty simple. You show a valid photo ID, complete the membership form, pay the €20 fee, then receive the same amount back in chips. After that you can walk straight onto the main floor or go to the poker parlour, depending on what you came to play. Staff on the door normally flag what is running that night and will point you where you need to go.
One practical thing that is easy to forget: if you are heading into a late session anywhere, not just here, sort out how you are getting home before you sit down to play. Time slips away quickly at a live table, and trying to grab a taxi at four in the morning with a pocket full of cash-out is not how most people want to finish the night.
| Day | Hours |
|---|---|
| Monday | 9 pm - 5 am |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 9 pm - 5 am |
| Friday | 9 pm - 5 am |
| Saturday | 9 pm - 5 am |
| Sunday | 9 pm - 5 am |
The address sits in the thick of the city centre, so a lot of central hotels are within walking distance if the weather behaves. Taxis and app cars cover the wider Dublin area without much difficulty. If you want to speak to the venue in advance, the direct phone line is +353 1 515 4704.
A Bit of Background
The building has a long life behind it. The site began as the Carlton Cinema, operating roughly between 1915 and 1936. After the projectors stopped, the property went through a series of different uses before eventually becoming Carlton Casino Club, which opened its doors on 20 October 2018. The current gaming room keeps the old name and leans into some of that period style.
The club sits within the Carlton Entertainment Group structure. The operator on record with Irish compliance bodies is Dublin Pool and Juke Box Company Limited, a name that says quite a lot about how Irish leisure and gaming licensing has shifted over the last few decades. Carlton Casino Club is listed on the official Private Members’ Gaming Clubs register maintained by the Irish AML authority, with entries confirmed in the September 2024 and June 2025 published registers.
Ireland does not run a separate, national casino licence system in the same way that Malta or the UK do. Private members’ gaming clubs like this work under the Gaming and Lotteries Acts, and also rely on local authority permissions together with anti-money-laundering obligations. So when you see Carlton on that AML-focused register, that is the relevant structure, instead of a neat, numbered casino licence you might see in other countries.
