The site in Oxford Street

THE tuxedo will need swift laundering, for Harrington hears a new casino could be opening in Oxford Street very soon.

Picture it now, the tip-tap of chips hitting the baize, the spin and rattle of the roulette ball, a well-slicked croupier snapping the deck and in need of a handsome tip.

And me, there in the middle of it all, ordering a bourbon at the bar – No! a Bowmore 1957 scotch – while Bond girl-types gasp and swoon as I take down sweating villains with a comeback flush on the final card of a poker hand. It’d be like Monte Carlo has come to… the unit in between Curry’s and Ann Summers.

Then I read the agenda for next Tuesday’s planning meeting and cancelled the dry-cleaning and eyebrow threading.

Although proposals for 100 Oxford Street – they won’t affect the 100 Club music venue in the basement btw – have the word “casino” big and bold out on the front sign, councillors will be voting on whether an “adult gaming centre” can move in, offering “gaming on cash operated machines”.

Less tux and taut green tabletops then, and more rows and rows of mesmerising slot machines. No dishy dealers, no being helped to your seat by Vesper Lynd in a draughty azure dress, and what’s more with the tech evolution of “the fruities” – as Gaz down The Globe used to call them – no real chance to refer to them as one-armed bandits any more; the simple but futile Vegas pleasure of yanking a big bicep lever in the hope of landing three blackberries in a row has gone all touchscreen. Woke nonsense!

Proposed ‘casino’ branding for the new gaming centre

Sadly, there certainly doesn’t seem to be much prospect of gatecrashing a gathering of balding ambassadors and foreign brigadiers at the planned “Admiral Adult Gaming Centre” in Oxford Street either, and no chance to discuss the infernal tax affairs of government ministers over a late game of pontoon either.

“Customers typically arrive alone rather than in groups and therefore the potential for external congregation does not arise,” explains the proposal from operators Luxury Leisure, to counter any concerns that residents will be disturbed late into the night, but nevertheless making you wonder who it is that will be drifting in on their lonesome.

There will certainly be no swilling of whisky – probably a good thing – as the business is not seeking to sell alcohol.

The make-up of Oxford Street, of course, is a matter of simmering debate, since the council recently said what everybody had been thinking for a while and suggested it had become overrun with American candy stores and tacky vape stick shops.

The “nation’s high street” has, we can surely all see, lost its sheen.

Perhaps that will be in the mind of councillors when they vote next week. Objectors, including Labour councillor Jessica Toale, the city council’s culture chief, and the Fitzrovia West

Residents’ Association, have already questioned whether a slots centre is a helpful new addition.

“Adult gaming centres due to the very nature of play being solitary with immediate pay-outs, can cause excessive play,” said Cllr Toale.

“There is a heightened risk that young people will be attracted to this premise.”

Council officers have nonetheless recommended that consent is granted next week and panel members have been advised to stick to planning rules, rather than issues for licensers and other bodies.

Luxury Leisure has stiffened its claim by providing a list of court cases where judges have said to different authorities around London and elsewhere that they had no reason to block centres like this one from moving in. The house, after all, always wins in the end.

Truth be told, people worried about how many ways there are to lose money amid the desperation stakes of the cost of living crisis – and let’s be aware that charities have already raised concerns that some are trying to win money to pay their bills and ending up in more debt – wouldn’t be too chuffed at Casino Royale opening in Oxford Street either.

I think I’d agree, as much as we’d all like to be Sean Connery for a night. Either way, Oxford Street surely deserves better than rubbery pick’n’mix, cherry pop vapes and slot machines.