Dragonara Casino

The Dragonara Casino occupies Dragonara Palace, a nineteenth-century residence built for the Marquis Giorgio Scicluna, one of Malta's most prominent banking families, on a rocky promontory jutting into the Mediterranean at St Julian's. The palazzo passed through private ownership for decades before being converted into one of Malta's licensed casinos in 1964, part of the island's early move to develop a regulated gaming sector alongside its tourism industry.

The building itself sets it apart from the resort towers that now surround it: thick stone walls, high corniced ceilings, and a genuinely nineteenth-century plan give the gaming rooms a domestic, palatial scale rather than the purpose-built sprawl of a modern casino floor. Several rooms retain period detailing, and the terraces around the building look directly out over the sea, a setting closer to a private villa than a commercial gaming house.

Inside, the gaming programme covers the standard European range — Roulette and Blackjack on the main floor, a slot-machine hall, and Punto Banco and poker rooms for a quieter, more dedicated section of visitors. Malta's position as a Mediterranean gaming and iGaming hub means the casino draws from a genuinely international visitor base, including a large seasonal tourist population staying in the Paceville and St Julian's resort strip that has grown up around the historic building.

That contrast — a nineteenth-century palazzo standing on its rocky point amid the high-rise hotels, bars, and clubs of modern Paceville — is itself part of the visit; the casino functions as one stop on an evening that, for most visitors, continues into the surrounding resort district afterward.