Our gaming lounge: 520 m² on level one, 38 gaming machines, eleven tables and the Torlesse Salon behind a door that is usually shut. One room in a hotel of a hundred and fourteen.
From the lobby, one flight of stairs beside the Bealey Bar, or the lift to level one. There is a desk at the entrance and a person behind it whenever the room is open. You will be asked for identification.
The Cape Room is the licensed gaming lounge at Wintercape. It takes the river half of level one, which is why the windows along the north wall look into the willows rather than into a light well, and why it is the only gaming room in the city where you can watch the punts go past.
It is a quiet room by design. There are no bells on the machines, the ceiling is acoustically lined, and the music — when there is any — stops at eleven. People who have been to a large casino somewhere else tend to describe it as small. It is: 520 square metres, thirty-eight machines and eleven tables, which is about the size of a decent restaurant.
Guests of the hotel and members of the public are equally welcome, provided they are twenty or over and can prove it. There is no membership, no joining fee and no card to carry. You walk in, you show identification, and that is the whole of the process.
If you are staying with us and have no interest in any of this, you will never have cause to walk through it. Nothing else in the building routes past this door.
Five tables, the most of anything in the room. Minimums are NZ$10 on three of them and NZ$25 on the two nearest the window, and they do not move on a Saturday, which is a policy rather than an accident. Rules are printed on a card at each table.
Two single-zero wheels, both of them European, both opened at noon and closed by hand. One takes NZ$5 minimum on the outside; the other is the higher of the pair and opens at six in the evening, or earlier if the room fills.
Three tables running Texas hold'em, cash game only. A scheduled game starts at 7pm Thursday to Sunday and runs until the table breaks. We do not run tournaments and have no plans to; the room is the wrong size for it and everyone would be miserable.
One table, punto banco, dealt from an eight-deck shoe. It opens at 6pm daily and stays open as long as it is wanted. There is a second baccarat table in the Torlesse Salon for anyone who would rather not do this in the middle of the room.
Four higher-limit tables behind the north wall — two blackjack, one roulette, one baccarat — with its own host, its own service and a door that closes. Minimums from NZ$100. Available by arrangement; ask at the Cape Room desk or before you arrive.
Arrange the Salon
Thirty-eight gaming machines along the two inner walls — video slots, a handful of classic three-reel cabinets, and six linked to a progressive. Denominations start at five cents. Every machine shows its return-to-player figure on the glass, because the law requires it and because you should be able to read it.
All eleven tables on the floor and all four in the Torlesse Salon are dealt by a person standing at them. There are no electronic table games at Wintercape, no terminals, and nothing anywhere in this building that can be played through a screen from somewhere else.
Our dealers are employed by the hotel, trained here over eleven weeks, and certified before they take a table alone. Twenty-three of them work across the roster. The reason we mention it is that a live table sets its own pace, and that pace is slower than a machine — which is, in our view, the whole argument for it.
Tables open through the afternoon rather than all at once: two blackjack and one roulette at noon, the rest as the room fills. If you want a specific game at a specific hour, telephone the Cape Room desk and someone will tell you honestly whether it will be open.
A New Zealand driver licence, a passport, a Kiwi Access card or an 18+ card. A photograph of one on a telephone is not identification and we will not accept it, however late it is and however far you have come.
Entry is restricted to adults aged twenty years and over under the Gambling Act 2003. We check identification at the door every time, including for people who have been coming for years, and the door host has no discretion about it. Anyone who cannot produce it does not come in.
The dress is smart casual. No high-visibility clothing, no work boots, no motorcycle helmets or full-face coverings. Sportswear is fine; a rugby jersey on a Saturday is expected. The boots rule is about the carpet, which was expensive and which we would like to keep.
The room is cashless at the tables in the sense that chips are bought at the table and cashed at the cage; there is no cash machine in the Cape Room or in the corridor outside it. The nearest is in the main lobby, sixty metres away, past the front desk.
Photography is not permitted anywhere on the gaming floor. This is about the other guests rather than about us, and the door host will ask you to put a telephone away without being especially polite about it.
Wintercape operates a gaming lounge on its premises in Christchurch and nothing else. We do not run, licence or promote any remote or interactive gambling service, there is no application to download, and no part of this site takes a stake, a deposit or a payment of any kind. If you find something claiming otherwise under our name, it is not us — please telephone reception and tell us.
There are six wall clocks in the Cape Room and every table can see at least one. A duty host checks them against the telephone at the start of each shift and records that he has done it.
Two on weeknights, three on Friday and Saturday. The last hand is called and it is not extended because the room is busy; we have never once kept a table open past close, and the staff know that asking is pointless.
Our people are trained to notice the things that matter — someone who has been at the same machine for hours, someone who has come back after saying they were finished, someone whose mood has turned. They are expected to approach, and they will, quietly and away from the table.
Self-exclusion is available at reception or by post, in writing and in confidence, for a minimum of two years. We do not ask why and we do not record a reason. It does not appear on your hotel account, and a self-excluded person remains entirely welcome in the restaurant, the bar, the spa and the rooms — it is the Cape Room door that closes, and nothing else.
The full policyTwo of the six packages on the promotions page include an evening in the Cape Room. Neither of them requires you to gamble to be worth the money, and both include dinner.
The Cape Room does not take bookings — you walk in, twenty or over, with identification. The Torlesse Salon does, and so does everything else in the building. If you want a table held, a Salon evening arranged, or simply to know whether the roulette will be open on a Tuesday in July, telephone the desk or send the form.
The gaming lounge at Wintercape is reserved for adults aged 20 and over, in line with New Zealand law. Please confirm your age before continuing.
Gaming at Wintercape is available on the premises only. There is no remote or interactive service of any kind. Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 — free, 24 hours.
Access to this website is restricted to visitors aged 20 and over.
If you need to speak to someone about gambling, the Gambling Helpline is free on 0800 654 655, 24 hours a day. Need to Talk? — call or text 1737.