Responsible Gaming
Five tables in a carriage barn at the bottom of the garden, open four evenings a week. Everything described here is arranged face to face, on this lot.
Where the house stands
A guest who plays for an evening, enjoys it and walks back up the path to bed has had a good night. One who plays until the room closes and thinks about it on the drive to the bridge has not. That's why the room is the size it is: it has five tables and closes at one, there is no credit at any hour and no cash machine on this lot, and the bar stops serving before the tables do.
Nineteen and over, every visit
The age is nineteen in Prince Edward Island, which catches people out because most of the world and several provinces say eighteen. Photo ID is checked at the door each time you come, even if you showed it at check-in. A passport, a provincial driver licence or a provincial photo card will do. No one under 19 enters at any hour.
What staff will do, there and then
- Hold a limit. Give your figure before you sit and it's written down and kept for the evening; if you'd like a suggestion, they'll make one.
- Tell you the time. Say when you'd like to be told the time and you will be.
- Keep your seat. Step out for twenty minutes, into the garden or, when it's cold, the parlour, and your seat will be waiting.
- Keep you out for a stretch. Tell the front desk you don't want to be admitted for a number of days, and it's written down and followed.
- Self-exclusion. Signed at the front desk and effective the same evening. It is lifted only when you come back to that desk in person, and it can't be done by telephone.
None of this is offered on the website, on purpose. Each of these is a conversation with somebody who can see your face, and in a house with eight bedrooms that's easy to arrange.
Worth noticing in yourself
- Staying later than you decided to, on more evenings than you decided to.
- Going back the next night chiefly to recover the night before.
- Being vague with whoever you came with about how the evening went.
- Thinking about the barn while you are standing on a red beach you drove forty minutes to see.
- Money meant for the rest of the trip going down the garden instead.
Any one of these on its own means little. Three together are worth talking about, and the people here have had that conversation before and won't make a fuss of it.
How staff are trained
Everyone who works that floor is briefed before a first shift and twice a year after: setting and holding a limit, handling a guest who has drunk too much, taking a self-exclusion quietly, and when to call the manager instead of dealing with it alone. The manager is in the house every evening the room is open.
How to ask
Tell whoever is on the floor, or come to the front desk between seven in the morning and eleven at night. You don't need an appointment or a reason.