| Casino du Liban | |
| Location: | Maameltein, Jounieh |
| Notable Restaurants: | La Martingale |
Casino du Liban (; Arabic: كازينو لبنان) is a casino located in Maameltein, in Lebanon and is 22 km north of Beirut.
With an area of about 35,000 square meters, the casino has around 400 slot machines and 60 gaming tables. It has a showroom, night club, theater, banquet facility and five restaurants. The casino was first opened in 1959. It closed in 1989 during the Lebanese Civil War and reopened in 1996 after a $50 million reconstruction and refurbishment project.[1] [2]
The Casino du Liban is majority-owned by Intra Investment Company, a Lebanese government-controlled company which is the remainder of the former Intra Bank, with the remainder of the shares held by private companies and individuals.[3] The casino is managed by London Clubs International, a subsidiary of Caesars Entertainment.[4]
Performers at the Casino's night club included Duke Ellington, Danny Thomas, Jacques Brel, and Julio Iglesias. Visitors at the casino included King Hussein of Jordan, Albert II, Prince of Monaco, the Shah of Iran, Aristotle Onassis, Omar Sharif,[5] and Osama bin Laden.[6]
In his memoir of the international hotel business, Shadow of the Sun: Travels And Adventures in the World of Hotels, Peter J. Venison wrote that the Casino du Liban "was elegant, yet the cabaret was spectacular and rivaled anything that Las Vegas could offer".[7] He also described it as a backdrop of a James Bond novel where clientele from the richest elite of European and Arabian societies ventured into the casino in formal black-tie attire.
"A tour of the city was planned and that evening dinner at the Casino du Liban."
"The Casino du Liban was set on a cliff, outside Beirut on the coast road."
"One of my early impressions of the contrasts of life in Lebanon was my first visit to the Casino du Liban—a luxurious gambling and entertainment spot in maamlten on the Mediterranean coast north of Beirut."