Spielbank Bad Homburg: games, opening hours, admission

Day ticket

€2.50 live tables; slot floor free

Annual card

€90 live tables

Minimum age

18 no driving licence, no digital ID

Reopened

April 1949 after closure in 1872

Öffnungszeiten

Spielangebot

1840, 1872, 1949: three dates that explain the house

In 1840 Landgrave Ludwig of Hesse-Homburg signed a concession contract with the brothers François and Louis Blanc; the casino opened in 1841. The small principality used the revenue to fund its spa business, and for three decades Bad Homburg was one of the best-known gambling towns in Europe.

That ended in 1872, when the newly founded German Empire banned casino operation and every German house closed. François Blanc had long since moved on: he had taken over the casino at Monte Carlo and ran it from 1862. The personal name the Bad Homburg house still carries points directly at that connection.

The house resumed operation in April 1949. The reopening falls into the period when the German states rebuilt casino law from scratch, and the structure they chose then — each state licensing its own houses — still governs the sector today.

Admission: an unusually transparent scale

For the live tables the house sells tiered tickets: €2.50 for a day, €7.50 for four days, €30 for a month and €90 for a year. The slot floor is free.

Very few German houses publish a scale like this. Among the seven described on this site, Hohensyburg and Osnabrück charge €5 for a day, Hamburg €2, Wiesbaden and Bad Dürkheim state that admission is free, and Kassel gives no price at all. If you expect to visit the tables regularly, the monthly or annual card is considerably cheaper than repeated day tickets.

The ticket covers only the classic game. If you are heading for the slot machines you pay nothing — but you go through exactly the same entry procedure.

Documents: the strictest wording of the seven houses

Bad Homburg requires a valid photo identity document, meaning a national ID card or a passport, and names what does not count: residence permits, driving licences and digital IDs cannot be accepted.

That is more explicit than most houses manage and it forestalls the most common misunderstanding. Visitors assume any official document with a photograph will do, and a driving licence has one. But the house needs an unambiguous identification including an address, which a plastic driving licence does not provide.

The digital ID function on a phone does not help at the desk either. It exists for online procedures — for instance filing a self-exclusion application with the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt through the Hesse portal — not for admission control.

Hours and the days when nothing runs

The slot floor runs daily from 12:00 to 04:00. The live tables open daily at 14:30 with play starting at 15:00, closing at 03:00 from Sunday to Thursday and at 04:00 on Friday and Saturday. The restaurant opens daily at 18:00.

The house is closed on Maundy Thursday from 00:00, on Good Friday, on Volkstrauertag, on Totensonntag, on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day; on New Year's Eve the operation ends from 20:00. The Maundy Thursday rule catches people out: if you are still playing on the Wednesday evening before Easter, you will be shown out at midnight.

Volkstrauertag is the German day of national mourning and Totensonntag the Protestant Sunday of the dead. Both fall in November, both move each year, and both are legally quiet days. Check the date on +49 6172 170-10 before travelling in that period.

A city-linked operator under state supervision

The operator is François-Blanc-Spielbank GmbH, registered at the district court of Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe under HRB 12455. The managing directors are Holger Reuter and Josef-Maria Krämer, and the chair of the supervisory board is the city's mayor, Alexander W. Hetjes. Supervision lies with the Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport in Wiesbaden.

The arrangement is typical of Hesse and at the same time particular to Bad Homburg: the licensee is a private company, but one closely tied to the city. The state awards the licence and keeps legal supervision, and Hessian state law determines where a casino may exist at all.

Casino houses pay a levy on their gross gaming revenue. Percentages circulate in secondary sources but could not be confirmed for Hesse from an official source, so this page gives only the principle: a levy on gross gaming revenue, set by each state separately and frequently progressive.

The exclusion check is treaty law, not house policy

Before the ticket comes the register check. § 8 paragraph 3 of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2021 requires identification by inspection of an official identity document, or an equivalent identity check, and comparison against the exclusion register held under § 23 — in land-based venues on every entry. The same rule covers gaming arcades and betting shops.

OASIS, that register, is run by the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt on behalf of all sixteen states, so an exclusion applies nationwide and across every form of gambling. A self-exclusion lasts at least three months, with one year as the default; a third-party exclusion at least a year. Neither expires on its own: an entry continues until a written application ends it, taking effect one week later for a self-exclusion and one month later for a third-party exclusion. Both applying and lifting are free of charge for players under § 8c GlüStV.

For advice, for yourself or for a relative, the Federal Institute for Public Health (BIÖG) runs a free and anonymous helpline on 0800 1 37 27 00; more information is at check-dein-spiel.de.

The house says it plainly: no online game

Spielbank Bad Homburg states expressly that it offers no online game. That statement is not decoration. Sites appear that borrow the names and photographs of German casino houses to manufacture trust.

The legal position is unambiguous. Online casino games fall under § 22c GlüStV and are explicitly outside the remit of the GGL, the joint gambling authority of the German states. Each state decides for its own territory and may grant at most as many licences as its state casino act would have permitted as at 17 January 2020. There is no nationwide online offering by the German state casinos.

On top of that, virtual slot games that replicate classic banked table games — roulette, blackjack or baccarat in particular — are prohibited in Germany. An online roulette claiming to come from a German casino therefore cannot be a licensed product. The GGL whitelist under § 9 paragraph 8 GlüStV shows who actually holds a permit.

Frequently asked

Sources

1. François-Blanc-Spielbank Bad Homburg, visitor information: <a href='https://www.spielbank-bad-homburg.de/ihr-besuch/' rel='nofollow noopener'>spielbank-bad-homburg.de/ihr-besuch</a> — hours, admission prices, identity documents, dress code, closing days (retrieved 30 September 2026).
2. François-Blanc-Spielbank Bad Homburg, legal notice: <a href='https://www.spielbank-bad-homburg.de/impressum' rel='nofollow noopener'>spielbank-bad-homburg.de/impressum</a> — company, management, court of registration, supervisory authority (retrieved 30 September 2026).
3. Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2021: § 2(2) scope for state casinos, § 8(3) identity check and exclusion-register comparison on every entry, §§ 8a–8c duration, lifting and costs, § 22c online casino games as a matter for the states, § 23 exclusion register.
4. Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt — operator of the OASIS exclusion register for all sixteen states.
5. Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport, Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 12, 65189 Wiesbaden — supervisory authority.
6. Federal Institute for Public Health (BIÖG), free helpline 0800 1 37 27 00, check-dein-spiel.de.