Two hotels opened twelve years apart mark the two ends of Nicosia's casino scene: the Merit Lefkoşa, built in 2008, and the Concorde Tower, opened in 2020. Of the other three names, the Grand Pasha sits on Dereboyu, while the Golden Tulip and City Royal occupy other spots around the centre. So how many casinos does Nicosia have? There is no official list; the five names in this article are the properties verifiably on sale in 2026, and they don't amount to a complete inventory. The number shifts whenever a new licence is issued or a property comes off the market. What the five share is the licence itself: in the TRNC (North Cyprus), a casino operates only inside a hotel — there are no standalone gaming halls on the high street. One reason the promotional language stays restrained is also the law: casino advertising is restricted in the TRNC (North Cyprus). On the Nicosia casino map, the properties differ as much by scale as by location: the smallest has 80 rooms, the largest 162.
Grand Pasha, No 6 Dereboyu
The Grand Pasha Lefkoşa Hotel & Casino & Spa at No 6 Dereboyu Avenue is the only casino hotel right on the avenue. Multiple listing sites give the same address, so there's no doubt about the location. It's a five-star property with 118 rooms. Guests wanting to melt into the evening cafe crowd are already on the avenue the moment they step outside. It's 8.4 miles from Ercan — roughly 13.5 kilometres — making it the closest of the five to the airport. Tripadvisor reviews run up to August 2026, and the property is on sale. The nightly rate the same site compiled for 2026 runs between 123 and 177 dollars for a standard room. That's an average, not the hotel's own tariff, and it moves with the season; checking the current figure before booking is essential.
The Merit Lefkoşa's Licence Exception
The Merit Lefkoşa Hotel & Casino in the city centre was built in 2008, a year before the Games of Chance Law No. 31/2009. This hotel is the oldest member of Nicosia's casino list. Agencies' 2026 booking pages are open and the hotel is on sale. In the TRNC (North Cyprus), casino licences generally go to large hotels with at least 750 beds; Nicosia has a few small-scale examples counted as exceptions to this, and the Merit is one of them. Which clause does the exception rest on? No source explains it by name, so no justification is given here either. The room count isn't certain either: sources vary between 116 and 252, with 116 appearing more often in the hotel category.
Next to the island's nearly thirty large casino resorts, it's a modest city hotel. On the poker side, Merit Lefkoşa has its own page in Pokeratlas's tournament listings, with regular, small-scale tables running here. The 2026 edition of the Merit Poker Classic, meanwhile, was played from 27 April to 7 May at the Merit Royal Diamond in Alsancak, Kyrenia, with players from 34 countries and more than 1,200 entries. The Nicosia calendar stays local-scale by comparison.
Two More Addresses in the Centre: Golden Tulip, City Royal
The ten-storey Golden Tulip Nicosia Hotel & Casino is in the city centre, 25 kilometres from Ercan. Some of its 139 rooms are standard, the rest suites and executive suites. Its promotional pages for the January-April 2026 period are still on sale; not a single source has emerged saying it closed. The information rests on agency pages; without confirmation from the hotel it's hard to call it definitively "open". The City Royal Hotel & Casino, meanwhile, is at No 19 Gazeteci Kemal Aşık Avenue, with 80 rooms: 41 standard, 31 deluxe, 8 suites. Its marketing carries the phrase "Cyprus's first business hotel"; that's the hotel's own marketing line, not a title conferred by the city. The casino floor offers blackjack, American roulette, punto banco, poker and slots. It's the only hotel to publish its game list in this detail — no table breakdown could be found for the other four. At both hotels, it's wise to ask the property directly about the current situation before booking; primary confirmation is missing for the Golden Tulip, and there's no dated verification for the City Royal's casino floor.
Concorde Tower in Gönyeli
The Concorde Tower Hotel & Casino & Convention & Spa, opened in 2020, has 162 rooms: 32 suites and 130 singles. The convention centre and spa share the same roof, and the marketing language targets the luxury segment. Most booking sites list the property under "Nicosia Centre", but the address is No 11 Yağmur Street, Yenikent-Gönyeli — a separate settlement five to eight kilometres north of the centre. Walking down to Dereboyu is out of the question here. The hotel positions itself for business travel and couples, and the "easy access to the city and main roads" emphasis also comes from its own promotional copy. Agency pages give no figures for the distance to Ercan or the centre.
The Distance to Ercan Varies by Property
There is no single distance to Ercan for Nicosia's casino hotels. The gap between the nearest and farthest property exceeds ten kilometres. For the Merit Lefkoşa, sources give two different figures between 14.5 and 25 kilometres, with most saying 25. No reliable measurement emerged for the City Royal or the Concorde Tower. The time estimate is more solid: 20-25 minutes by car from the city to the airport, shifting by a few minutes depending on the property. Compared with the coastal casino zones, that's a short transfer. No other major city on the island sits this close to an airport.
| Property | Location | Distance to Ercan | 2026 status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Pasha Lefkoşa | No 6 Dereboyu Ave. | ~13.5 km | Active, reviews through August 2026 |
| Merit Lefkoşa | City centre | 14.5-25 km, sources differ | Appears active, agency sales ongoing |
| Golden Tulip Nicosia | City centre | ~25 km | Appears active, no primary confirmation |
| City Royal | No 19 Gazeteci Kemal Aşık Ave. | Unverified | Appears active, casino floor unconfirmed |
| Concorde Tower | Yenikent-Gönyeli, outside the centre | Unverified | Active |
The phrase "appears active" rests on agency pages taking bookings for 2026; confirmation from the hotel's own website wasn't available for every property.
What's Required at the Casino Door
No entry without ID; those under 25 and anyone enrolled as a student in the TRNC (North Cyprus) stay outside the gaming floor. There's nothing specific to Nicosia here — the same framework applies in every casino on the island. There are no ATMs inside the gaming halls, so sort out your cash needs before the entrance. Gambling can be addictive; deciding how much you can afford to lose before you walk in is the most sensible approach. Judging by the hotels' own marketing, Nicosia's casino guests fall into two groups: weekday business travellers and weekend players. The City Royal's "business hotel" emphasis and the Concorde Tower's business-travel positioning both describe this profile in the hotels' own words. It doesn't count as a citywide statistic — it's the hotels' own description of their target audience. Casino operations continue in the south of the island too, but since Turkish citizens who entered via the TRNC (North Cyprus) cannot cross over, that fact has no practical bearing on a Nicosia itinerary. The city has no coastline of its own; guests who want a beach head down to Kyrenia or Famagusta in the morning and return to their Nicosia hotel in the evening.
