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About Us
Casino-Shop was the first and remains the UK's largest dedicated supplier of gambling products for the home and corporate entertainment market.
We can supply you with the very best branded poker goods and we have supplied many on-line poker & casino sites, as well as casinos including the world famous Ritz in Piccadilly, London.
Our registered address (our accountants) is:
Charter House, 103-105 Leigh Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 1JL.
Opening Hours
Our standard office hours are: Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm.
We are usually closed on all public holidays for the United Kingdom. Outside of these hours you need to make a prior appointment with us, or there is an answer phone to leave us a message.
Our contact number is +44 (0)1702 813 037.
The Store
Our main warehouse is located at:
1 Tintern Mews,
Westcliff-on-Sea, SS0 9QJ. United Kingdom.
The Staff
Below you can find a brief summary of the personnel that will look after your order with our company:
Simon Rush - Owner
Involved in games professionally since September 1989 when he started his own company writing and publishing sports computer games. Interested in poker as a home game for leisure since seeing the idea on multiple American TV programmes, but only discovered Texas Hold 'Em in January 2003 and has (subject to time and other matters) been regularly playing online and live ever since.
Angela Lidbury - Warehouse Assistant
Started 27th October 2003; Angela has been a reliable picker and packer who only works during non-school terms.
Brief company history and significant events
April 1997
The idea to create a dedicated supplier of casino equipment was born from owner's attendance and enjoyment at a charity fun casino.
August 1998
First purchase of casino equipment from America
September 1998
First machine to print chips was purchased
October 1998
First casino hire completed, actually 2 charity events very close together followed by several birthday party events. This created a whole new unexpected business idea.
30th April 1999
www.casino-uk.com was the first URL that was bought to
publish this business area on the internet. This can be verified on the whois register.
October 1999
First corporate fun casino event successfully catered for a local business with equipment more like a real casino.
1st February 2000
First purchase of casino equipment from Asia
12th July 2000
The URL www.casino-shop.co.uk was purchased to create a dedicated site for equipment sales.
13th February 2001
Corporate hire successfully fulfils 50 table fun casino event on behalf of IBM USA at the Hilton Metropole Edgware Road. This was for one night only and was larger than any real UK casino.
1st June 2001
First purchase of dedicated van. A 2nd hand high top long wheel based Mercedes Sprinter.
1st January 2002
Owner decides to concentrate on casino businesses and make previous business operating since September 1989 of writing computer games dormant. This company supplied approximately 50,000 private mail orders and developed over 20 products. Many more units went to wholesale for retail sale during 13 years of business.
6th April 2003
Started to sell a selected range of our products on ebay.
23rd October 2003
Purchased and installed a semi automatic chip printing machine.
1st December 2003
Private casino hire business sold to Matthew Neil.
1st July 2004
Doubled size of storage with additional rented warehouse.
1st March 2005
Sold our ebay business to another company because of punitive margins achieved whilst maintaining high standard level of service to customers.
14th April 2005
Purchased a new warehouse doubling storage capacity.
7th July 2005
Moved the majority of stock and day to day operations into new warehouse. Some goods remain at the former premises.
20th September 2005
poker-shop was approached by an ebay poker chip trader (pokerpassion) that wished to sell up.
13th December 2005
Received another offer from an ebay poker chip trader to buy there slow selling and ever decreasing valued poker stock.
23rd December 2005
Purchase a brand new Ford high top long wheel based van.
1st May 2006
Received 3rd offer from a small poker shop competitor (casino-supplies) that wished to sell us there liquidated poker and casino stock.
26th June 2006
Additional storage space rented to cope with continued growth.
July 2006
Another heavily promoted Ebay trader ceases trading because of financial difficulty.
23rd October 2006
Bought surplus stock from Ebay trader who 1st approached us December 05 to buy the majority of the stock that he was unable to resell cost effectively.
1st November 2006
Bought redundant stock from Ebay trader who closed down their business in July 06.
1st March 2007
Yet another Ebay trader (badbeat) giving up the business and approach us to buy their hard to sell stock.
2007
poker-shop successfully completes its largest ever branded chip order for 2.2m chips in September.
Our largest rival is quietly put up for sale we only discover this several months later and make some enquiries. As a result we are informed that poker-shop is the market leader.
After a chat with the owner and some accounts are overviewed we subsequently make an offer to take over this smaller competitor.
Unfortunately, after indicating and being offered pretty much what was first verbally said to be acceptable albeit with conditional terms the owner suddenly gives unrealistic expectations that destined the offer to failure thereafter.
2008
With the start of the credit crunch the corporate entertainment market became one of the areas hardest hit; trade subsequently tails off during this year.
2009
The largest rival fails to make any sale of their business and they come to an agreement with another long established real casino equipment supplier to store their stock and fulfil their websites orders; we pick up several new trade customers as a mresult of this change in their logistics.
2010
As trade continues to decline less full time staff are employed through natural wastage.
2011
We discover our formally biggest rival now makes a deal with another competitor to effectively withdraw from the market by selling their remaining stock to them.
2012
Another rival that did a lot of trade in reselling withdraws from the marketplace to concentrate on more profitable lines.
As a result of this several small competitors also disappear or end up dealing with poker-shop and encourages in a slight increase in trade during this year.
2013
No significant events to date. Overall trade appears to be at a similar level to the previous year.
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