About the Velvet Reel Club

How the Club began

Most of the rooms we’ve loved had one thing in common: they took their time. Deep chairs, low lamps, a barman who remembered how you took your drink, a game of cards that nobody rushed. We wanted to bring that unhurried feeling to the games people play on their phones, and to keep the one part that matters most — the play itself — completely free.

So we designed a club from scratch. The colours came from a Mayfair drawing room at one in the morning: oxblood velvet, brass gone soft with years of polishing, ivory menu cards with thin gilt edges. The games were made in-house to fit the room — a five-reel cabinet, a single-zero wheel, a long blackjack table, a baccarat room and the night porter’s video poker. Each has its own small story, and each plays by rules printed right underneath it.

What the Club is

Velvet Reel Club is a free-to-play social casino for adults aged 18 and over in the United Kingdom. Every game runs on Velvet Chips, a play currency we hand out freely: 5,000 to start and a free refill whenever you want one. It’s entertainment, in the same way that a hand of patience or an evening of cards around the kitchen table is entertainment.

What the Club is not

We are not a gambling operator, and nothing on this site is gambling. You can’t pay in, you can’t buy chips, and there are no in-app purchases of any kind. Velvet Chips have no cash value: they cannot be sold, swapped, transferred or withdrawn, and there are no prizes. Because nothing of value can be staked or won, the Club is not a gambling service and does not need a licence from the Gambling Commission.

Nor are we a directory of other people’s games. Every table at the Club was made for the Club, and we never link to gambling sites.

Who runs it

Velvet Reel Club is operated by velvetreelclub.com, hello@velvetreelclub.com. They look after the website, the games, the policies and the post. If you have a question, a suggestion or a complaint, write to hello@velvetreelclub.com and a real person will read it.

House manners

We keep a few principles the way a good club keeps its rules — quietly, and without exception.

• We don’t ask who you are. There are no accounts, profiles or passwords.
• We don’t store your progress on our servers. Your balance lives on your own device.
• We don’t send notifications, newsletters or offers, and we never will.
• We build in the means to step away: reality checks, breaks and a one-click reset, all in responsible play.

If something about the Club falls short of those manners, we’d genuinely like to hear about it. The contact page explains how.