Responsible Gaming

The gaming room is a small part of a hotel. It is open for six hours a night and has nine tables, and most of the people in it have come down after dinner and will go back up before midnight. The house would like it to stay that way, and that is why this page exists and why the staff work as they do.

The position of the house

Playing is entertainment, and entertainment has a size: the amount you were content to spend on the evening before it started. It is not a way to make money or to recover money already lost, and the staff will not help anybody chase either. If a member of staff thinks an evening has stopped being entertainment, they will say so politely, and they have the authority to act on it.

Strictly over 18

French law sets the age at 18. We check photo identification at the door on every visit, without exception. That covers guests who have stayed in the house for twenty years, and it covers the second time somebody comes down on the same night. We accept a passport, a national identity card, a residence permit or a driving licence carrying a photograph. A room key is not identification, and neither is a familiar face. Anyone who cannot produce a document does not come in, and arguing at the door has never changed that.

What the staff can arrange, there and then

Everything below is arranged in person, by the people who work here. You don't need to post a form, use a website or telephone anyone outside the building.

• A time limit. Tell the floor manager when you want to stop and they will come and let you know when that time arrives. If you ask them to be firm about it, they will be.
• A spending limit. Agree an amount with a member of staff before you sit down and they will hold you to it on the floor. Table limits are set by the staff working that night and posted at each table, so ask what they are before you play.
• A break. Any dealer will hold your place, and there is a chair in the hall and coffee at any hour. Nobody comments on it or tries to talk you back to the table.
• A quiet period. Choose a night off, a week off or the rest of your stay. Say so at reception or on the floor and the door staff are told. It isn't written down anywhere a guest could see.
• Confidential self-exclusion. Ask at reception, in person. It is arranged at the desk, on paper, with one member of staff, in about five minutes, and you choose the length, including no end date. Door staff are given a name only, and it is never discussed with other guests. It cannot be reversed on the spot: if you ask to end it, the request waits a week before anyone acts on it.

Reception is staffed from 07:00 to 23:00 every day, and outside those hours the floor manager in the east wing can arrange all of the same things.

No credit, no cash machine

The floor gives no credit: nothing is lent, no cheque is taken and no marker is written. Nothing from the east wing can be charged to a room, and the hotel has no cash machine, in the gaming room, the hall or anywhere else; the nearest one is a walk into town. This is deliberate. When the money you brought down is gone, the evening is over, and the walk up the stairs is the safeguard.

Signs worth noticing

In yourself, or in someone you are travelling with:

• Going back for more than you decided on before you came down, more than once.
• Playing to win back what you have lost instead of for the pleasure of it.
• Being vague or untruthful with a partner about how the evening went.
• Skipping dinner, a walk or a day out that was planned, in order to be in the room.
• Feeling flat or irritable on a night when the room is closed.
• Borrowing, or thinking about borrowing, from someone on the trip.
• Feeling relieved, not disappointed, when the doors shut.

One of these on a single evening means little, but several of them, repeated, are worth acting on.

How the staff are trained

Everybody who works the floor (dealers, the bar, the floor manager, the person on the door) is trained before their first shift and again every year. The training covers the age check and why it is absolute, how to notice a change in how somebody is playing, how to start a conversation without an audience, how to arrange a limit or a self-exclusion without making a scene, and when to stop serving alcohol. Reception staff are trained on self-exclusion too, since a guest is more likely to raise it at the desk in the afternoon than on the floor at midnight.

The floor manager keeps a short written note of any conversation of this kind. The note exists to help run the room well, and only the manager and the duty staff see it; it is not shared with anyone else.

Asking, and how to make it easy

Say it to any member of staff, in any room of the hotel, in a single sentence. “I would like to set a limit.” “I do not want to be let in this week.” “Can you stop me at eleven.” That is enough, and nobody will ask for your reason. You can also write to [email protected] before you travel, and it will be in place when you arrive.

If you are worried about someone travelling with you, speak to the floor manager. We cannot tell you anything about another adult's evening, and we do not discuss one guest with another, but we can listen and we can make sure the staff on the door are paying attention.

A word on the website

Nothing can be played on this website, and it takes no bets, deposits or payments and holds no accounts. Everything on this page happens in the building, in Annecy, with a person in front of you. The gaming floor page describes what the room itself is like, and the Terms of Use cover the rest.