The offer is a clear indication that that international gambling giants such as Harrah’s believe the UK brick-and-mortar gambling market is about to take off, with the Gambling Act 2005 allowing for more casinos and stripping down the regulatory constraints that have kept the casino industry almost underground.

Already the Gambling Commission has been deluged with applications for casino licences and it revealed it had already granted 111 new licenses in the final year of the 1968 Gambling Act. Given there were only 139 licenses before the new wave of applications, that means the number of casinos could rise by as much as 80 percent, and that is before the new wave of casino applications are processed under the Gambling Act 2005.