Private members’ clubs such as the Fitzwilliam Card Club are opening to meet the demand for gambling, writes Helen Boylan.

Gambling in Ireland is valued at more than €3 billion a year, but Irish gambling clubs still operate in a legislative grey area. Commercial gambling is illegal under the 1931 Betting Act and the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act. Ireland is also the only country in the EU that has no law specifically governing casinos.

Some casinos and card clubs operate within the law by imposing a members-only policy on patrons. By setting themselves up as ‘private members’ clubs’, these so-called casinos are not subject to the same rules as normal commercial entities.

One such establishment is the Fitzwilliam Card Club on Fitzwilliam St Lower in Dublin. Its premises - a former church hall - were transformed five years ago into a two-floor, open-plan casino. The club opened in April 2003 and attracted more than 10,000members during its first year. It now has more than 42,000 members, who gambled €20 million last year.

David Hickson, the managing director of the Fitzwilliam Card Club, is also a director of the Gaming and Leisure Association. He said that the surge in membership of clubs such as the Fitzwilliam was not necessarily due to an increased interest in gambling.

‘‘Research in Britain shows that there is no more prevalence in gambling than there was five or six years ago,” said Hickson. “As generations become more familiar with computers and the internet, the gambling sector spreads more quickly through the online world.”

The Fitzwilliam Card Club opens 24 hours a day, seven days a week and operates a strict membership policy. Members’ details are logged on a database, through which Hickson can get insights into individual profiles, the amount of money spent on an average night, the most popular games and trend changes in online games and private member clubs.

The club’s facilities include 14 poker tables, cameras that record games live for internet users, in-house tournaments - for which registration fees cost between €250 and €500 - and cash games.

Alcohol is not served. “People who are interested in playing cards don’t want somebody under the influence sitting down beside them and upsetting the game,” Hickson said. The club’s kitchen serves everything from ham and cheese sandwiches to five-course meals for large groups.

Members can play blackjack, roulette, Brit Brag, punto banco and Texas hold ’em poker, which is ‘‘sweeping the world at the moment’’, according to Hickson. Punters are limited to one credit card transaction in a 24-hour period. “We don’t offer credit, in keeping with best international practices,” said Hickson.

He added that the club also offered a ‘‘self-exclusion’’ service for members who believe they are in danger of gambling more than they can afford. ‘‘They can ask to be barred,” he said.

To protect itself and its members, the Fitzwilliam Card Club has spent €250,000 on a security system with 60 cameras. Bulletproof glass and steel-lined walls separate the cash desk from the main floor, and the safe is time-locked.

About half of the club’s 110 employees are Irish and the other half are made up of 18 nationalities. Hickson stressed ‘‘the massive job creation potential’’ and business that clubs such as the Fitzwilliam could provide.

‘‘Our members are tradesmen, professional accountants, lawyers and other professions from a whole cross-section,” he said.” We tend to attract genuine game enthusiasts who have a loyalty to this club. Other clubs around Grafton Street and Harcourt Street attract more of a passing trade than we do.

‘‘Dealers and croupiers by their very nature use their job to travel the world, so there is a fairly consistent turnover here. It would be great for us to get more Irish croups.”

The gambling sector remaining unlicensed is the main reason why the club doesn’t hire more Irish dealers, according to Hickson. “There is no training for dealers in Ireland,” he said. “We prefer to employ people who have been trained in a licensed jurisdiction.”

In the second quarter of 2007, the club approached Fas to set up a dealer training course. “The kinds of courses we want here exist in Britain,” he said. “But we were told that, until operators get licensed in Ireland, Fas would not be able to set up such a course. They said whenever it is possible to get a licence, we should get back to them.”

The Gaming and Leisure Association has lobbied for the regulation of the gambling industry. “Quite a bit of headway was made’’ until former justice minister Michael McDowell took a negative view of casinos, according to Hickson. In August 2006, the cabinet decided to consider options to regulate the gambling industry.

In contrast to McDowell’s attack on casino culture in 2006, in which he said that casinos were ‘‘more damaging to society than positive’’ and that he did ‘‘not believe they add anything to the good life of Ireland’’, Hickson believes that a few TDs and a minister who recently visited the Fitzwilliam club ‘‘seemed suitably impressed’’.

‘‘They expressed the opinion that running a professional, regulated operation is the only way to do it.

‘‘Regulation and licensed operators will provide consumer protection, huge potential for employment and professional training opportunities,” he said.

Hickson said the club’s owners would like to expand, but they did not want to spend any more money than necessary until there was a proper regulation environment.

‘‘Without any background checks in Ireland, anyone can open a casino,” Hickson said. Until that changes, his plans to expand the club will have to wait.