Getting into the Monte Carlo Casino, by day to look and after 14:00 to play

You can walk into the Monte Carlo Casino without staking a single euro, and to me that’s the most sensible way to get to know it. In the morning it’s a building you tour with an audio guide. In the afternoon it becomes a gaming hall with a doorman, a dress code and an ID check. Both cost the same, and choosing the wrong time of day is the mistake I see most.

Is the Monte Carlo Casino free to enter?

Partly, and there are three ways in. The shortest is free, because the atrium and the shop are open to anyone.

The second is the daytime visit, every day from 10:00 to 13:00, with last entry at 12:15. It costs €20 per adult with an audio guide, €15 for ages 13 to 17 and nothing for 6 to 12. The third is going into the gaming rooms from 14:00, also €20, although there half of it comes back as credit.

To see the building, I’d go in the morning, with no tables running and someone explaining what you’re looking at. For the gaming atmosphere, the afternoon, with the clothes and the ID they ask for.

Mornings, with an audio guide and in shorts

The visit takes you, audio guide in hand, through the historic rooms and galleries, with their history, décor and works of art. It crosses the marble floor where a James Bond scene was shot in 1983, and there are temporary exhibitions through the year. Groups of ten or more pay €17 per adult and €12 for ages 13 to 17.

The best thing about this slot is the clothing. SBM (short for Société des Bains de Mer, which operates the casino) accepts T-shirts, shorts and trainers in the morning. The official website doesn’t say how long the route takes, so I’d allow a good hour for the square, the visit and the shop, and I’d arrive before 12:00 so as not to be rushing in on the last entry.

On the morning visit SBM allows photos in some of the gaming rooms, without saying which, so I’d ask at the door before getting my phone out. From 14:00 the rooms are for gaming only.

Afternoons are for playing, and the door changes

From 14:00 the gaming rooms open every day. Entry costs €20 and includes €10 to spend on the slot machines, at the bar or in Le Salon Rose restaurant, so if you’re having a drink anyway, a look round works out at ten.

The games are French roulette, English roulette, punto banco, blackjack, craps and Ultimate Texas Hold’em poker, and the slots are in the Salle Renaissance and the Salon Touzet. One detail I love is that the tables are built by craftspeople in SBM’s own workshops.

Two conditions aren’t up for negotiation. You must be 18 and show an original document, an EU identity card or a photo passport, which for British visitors means the passport. Photocopies and digital ID on your phone aren’t accepted. And one rule surprises plenty of people, because Monegasques, civil servants and SBM staff are barred from gambling, in person or through someone else (the English version of the rule says residents). The rooms’ closing time isn’t on the official website, and I wouldn’t trust the small-hours times that circulate in unofficial guides without asking there.

What to wear, hour by hour

The rule changes twice a day. In the morning anything comfortable goes. From 14:00, the gaming rooms don’t admit shorts (knee-length ones included), ripped jeans, sportswear, trainers, flip-flops or men’s sandals, vests or beachwear. From 19:00, T-shirts and sweatshirts join the list.

In packing terms, for the afternoon I’d bring long trousers without rips, closed shoes that aren’t trainers and, if you’re going in after 19:00, a shirt or anything that isn’t a T-shirt. SBM’s conditions of entry don’t require a suit or jacket for the main rooms. The private salons are another matter and their rules aren’t published on the official website, so I’d rather not make them up.

The rooms I’d look out for inside

Charles Garnier designed the façade in 1879, and inside is the work of artists active between 1863 and 1910. SBM singles out the Salle Europe, with its great stained-glass roof and eight Bohemian crystal chandeliers, the Salle des Amériques, by Garnier himself in 1881, the Salle Blanche, from 1903, the Salons Touzet, twin rooms by Jules Touzet from 1890, and the Salle Médecin, by Julien Médecin, completed in 1910.

With the audio guide in my ear, I’d look for the Salle Blanche first, for its painting Les Grâces Florentines. It shows three very famous women of the day, Liane de Pougy, Émilienne d’Alençon and La Belle Otero, in the nude, and SBM itself admits it caused a minor scandal. I like it because it sums the place up, a building that has always thrived on being talked about. François Blanc, the founder, put it in a line the house still quotes, that nothing here should be done the way it’s done anywhere else.

The Opera, in the same complex

The Monte-Carlo Opera, the Salle Garnier, is part of the casino complex and was also designed by Charles Garnier. It opened on 25 January 1879, after about eight and a half months of building work with over 2,000 labourers, and that night Sarah Bernhardt performed with a programme of arias and orchestral pieces, not a full opera. The first work written for the hall, Robert Planquette’s Le Chevalier Gaston, premiered on 8 February that year.

It’s smaller than people imagine, with 517 seats when the orchestra pit is in use or 569 without it, plus 66 places in boxes and balconies. The central chandelier is 5 metres tall, carries 400 lights and weighs 5 tonnes of bronze. To see inside, I wouldn’t look for a tour, I’d look for a performance. The 2026-2027 season, with Cecilia Bartoli as artistic director, runs from 7 November 2026 to 15 April 2027, and under-26s pay half on single tickets. Regular performances call for a smart lounge suit and no trainers, and galas for black tie or a dark suit and tie.

Playing without an entry fee, on the same square

If it’s the gaming you’re after rather than the building, the Casino Café de Paris is free to enter, with slots from 10:00 and tables from 16:00 every day, offering blackjack, punto banco, French and American roulette and Ultimate Texas Hold’em. It asks for the same age and the same ID, and relaxed smart clothing, no tracksuits or beachwear. The Sun Casino at the Fairmont hotel, still listed in some guides, closed on 14 March 2020 and never reopened.

My plan would be the 10:00 visit, a stroll around the square and a return after dark to see the façade lit up. What’s around it is in what to see in Monte-Carlo, and the bars and club for later in Monaco nightlife. If you’re coming for the day from the Riviera, I compare the train and bus in getting from Nice to Monaco, and before switching on your data, read about phone roaming in Monaco. For a bed near the square, try where to stay in Monaco; the treats I would pay for are in luxury experiences in Monaco.