On June 26th a Grosvenor spokesperson confirmed that their Osborne Road casino in Portsmouth would be closing with effect from the 9th August. Shortly afterward, the casino website reconfirmed the sad news for locals who have enjoyed the location for many years. General Manager, Paul Brady apologized for the inconvenience and invited patrons to visit their Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth location.

Earlier the company had said that some 50 employees of the Osborne casino would receive one weeks severance pay for each year they had been employed there, and invited them to apply at other Grosvenor casinos.

Grosvenor is one of several casino operators that were approved in September 2014 to apply for a “large casino” license at Southampton’s Royal Pier. The license decision was supposed to have been announced in June but to date has not been made public. Aspers, Genting, Grosvenor, Global Gaming Ventures and Kymeira Casino submitted a total of seven casino applications for the lone license.

The Gambling Act of 2005 authorized the building of a so-called “super casino” or regional casino in the UK which would offer a minimum of 5,000 square meters of gaming space and hold as many as 1,250 unlimited-jackpot slot machines. Sixteen other casinos were authorized; 8 “large” casinos with up to 150 slots and 8 “small” casinos with up to 80 machines each. The super casino did not come to fruition and so far, only Aspers has garnered licenses for large casinos with one in Milton Keynes and the other in Stratford in London.