History of the London Victoria Casino

The Grosvenor Victoria Casino, or the London Vic, may have achieved recent notoriety as the location for the London stop on the European Poker Tour, where journalist Vicky Coren beat a field of poker superstars to win the event, but its roots extend much farther back.

The Origins of the London Vic

Decades ago, a little room designed for bookmakers on Edgware Road to the north of Hyde Park in London called the Victoria Sporting Club provided a haven for gamblers. As more and more card games broke out, the room expanded to become the London Victoria, a casino and card room that attracted the poker greats of the United Kingdom.

In the ‘80s, the standard seven-card stud games had to make room for Texas hold’em, Omaha and London Lowball, a seven-card stud all low variant. These lowball games grew to become some of the highest stakes games in the world, with hundreds of thousands of pounds on the table at any given time.

London Vic Poker Stars

One of the players who could often be found within the Vic’s walls was Willie “The Diceman” Tann. Tann, born in Singapore, came to England in the 1960s to pursue a law career. He discovered poker and the Vic along the way and became one of the more feared poker players in Europe. Tann is the owner of a World Series of Poker bracelet that he won in 2005 for $1,000 no-limit Hold’em. He also made the final table of the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event in 2000. He has tournament winnings of over a million dollars.

Another London Vic regular was Surinder Sunar. Born in India, Sunar was a two-time finalist in the Late Night Poker televised poker tournaments. These tournaments were the precursor and inspiration for the many televised poker tournaments airing in the modern era. He won the World Poker Tour’s Grand Prix de Paris event and has winnings of over three million dollars.

Today’s London Vic

While the high stakes lowball games of the 1980s are gone from the London Vic, the London Victoria, as part of the Grosvenor line of casinos, still does a very healthy business, both in poker and other gambling games such as blackjack and slot machines. Any British poker player worth his salt will still want to have a membership at the London Vic, and the addition of more poker tables with cash games and affordable tournaments is allowing a whole new generation of players to become a part of the Vic’s rich poker history.

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