Simon Thomas, the Executive Chairman of the Hippodrome Casino, has used his LinkedIn profile to make the case that Leicester Square deserves an official title it doesn’t currently have, which is that of London’s Casino Quarter. His argument rests on the sheer density of casino entertainment now packed into the square. Alongside the Hippodrome sit the Empire, Horizon and Rialto casinos, with a fourth on the way once Genting finishes converting part of the old Trocadero building into a new casino and leisure venue, putting a real focus on betting in the location.
The Case for Official Recognition
A London icon, watching over the city for more than a century ✨ pic.twitter.com/A8ktp31buj
— Hippodrome Casino (@HippodromeLDN) June 10, 2026
Thomas points out that the Hippodrome has spent the past 14 years pulling attention in Leicester Square away from just the film premieres and red carpets, which is something that he puts down to sustained investment and a willingness to offer more than gaming alone. Genting’s Trocadero project, meanwhile, is set to bring casino tables, restaurants and bars to roughly 37,000 square feet of long-vacant space inside the Grade II-listed building on Coventry Street, adding a fourth major operator to the immediate area in the not-too-distant future. Thomas wrote,
Within a very tight footprint, you now have a group of venues that are actively redefining what a modern casino can be: large, professionally run operations, significant employers, open late, heavily regulated, and used to managing high volumes of customers safely, every single night.
Thomas’s pitch looks heavily at the fact that both the Greater London Authority and Westminster City Council have said that they want to build London into more of a genuine 24-hour city. His argument is that this ambition already exists on the ground in Leicester Square.
He believes that an official designation would simply recognise what’s already working, rather than invent something new. He said,
So the question for London’s decision-makers is a simple one: if this is already happening, why not recognise it properly and build on it? Designate it. Support it. Market it.
He added that a Casino Quarter tag would double as ‘a fantastic new marketing handle’ for that stretch of the West End, one that he reckons would extend ‘visitor dwell time’ and pull in international tourists who might otherwise skip central London altogether.
The Hippodrome itself passed 20 million customers through its doors back in February, which Thomas clearly sees as evidence the model works and deserves to be built on, rather than merely tolerated. For now, though, it’s just an argument, made on LinkedIn rather than in any formal planning submission. Neither the GLA nor Westminster City Council has responded publicly to the idea at the time of writing. Whether Leicester Square ends up with an official Casino Quarter sign or simply carries on as it is, London’s more informal answer to somewhere like the Las Vegas Strip, remains to be seen.