Block A · rooms 1–24
Platform Room
The standard casino hotel room, facing the line. You will hear the night freight at about two, and after a day out you will not care.
- Sleeps
- 2
- Size
- 18 m²
- Facing
- The platform
From 1 950 NOK a night
km 268 1 214 m · no road access
A casino hotelyou can only reach by train.
Vardheim Casino Hotel is a fictional Norwegian casino hotel at a station on the high mountain crossing: forty-one casino hotel rooms above the treeline, a kitchen that gets everything it cooks by rail, and a six-table casino in the old carriage hall. There is no road to Vardheim. There has never been a road to Vardheim.
km 268 The station
Everything here
arrived on rails,
including the hotel.
Vardheim is imagined as a casino hotel that exists because a railway had to cross a mountain and needed somewhere to keep people.
The line was cut through in the first decade of the twentieth century by men who spent winters up here in barracks. The station buildings went up as accommodation for them, and stayed. This casino hotel now occupies the lot: the rooms are in the old lodging blocks, the kitchen is in the goods shed, and the casino is in the carriage hall where snowploughs and rolling stock were stabled between shifts. Everything on the property came up the line, and everything that leaves goes down it.
- 15:42
- The afternoon train, and check-in
- Platform 1
- 17:00
- Sauna, then out into it
- Behind the shed
- 19:30
- Dinner in the goods shed
- The kitchen
- 21:00
- The casino opens in the carriage hall
- Km 268 · 18+
- 08:14
- The morning train, if you want it
- Platform 1
Nobody arrives here by accident. The train has to stop for you.
41Casino hotel rooms
06Tables in the casino
1 214Metres above sea level
0Roads, in any direction
km 268 Casino hotel rooms
Forty-one rooms
in the old
lodging blocks.
Painted board walls, iron beds replaced with better ones, wool everywhere and windows small enough to survive a February. Every casino hotel room has a drying cupboard, because you will need it.
Block B · rooms 25–38
Gable Room
End rooms with two windows and a corner stove, looking out at the plateau and absolutely nothing else.
- Sleeps
- 2
- Size
- 26 m²
- Facing
- The plateau
From 3 100 NOK a night
The old signal box · 3 suites
The Signal Box
Three suites in the signal box above the points, glazed on three sides, with the levers still in place and firmly out of service.
- Sleeps
- 3
- Size
- 44 m²
- Facing
- Everything
From 5 200 NOK a night
Rates in Norwegian kroner, including breakfast, sauna and 12% VAT. Casino entry is never bundled into a room rate.
km 268 The casino · adults 18+
Six tables,
in the carriage hall.
The casino occupies the hall where rolling stock was stabled out of the weather: one long timber space with a pit still visible under the floor grating, six casino tables along it and a bar at the buffer end. It is panelled in the same wood as a sleeping car and heated the same way. No machines, no screens, no music — just the wind on the roof, which up here is a constant.
BlackjackTwo casino tables, hand-dealt
RouletteOne wheel, single zero
BaccaratOne table, hosted
PokerTwo tables, dealer's choice
21:00 Casino opens 00:30 Last hand 01:00 Casino closes
How casino play works here →18+ Photo ID is checked at the casino door every night — 18 is the minimum gambling age in Norway. Tell the host your limit before you sit down at a casino table and they will hold you to it. Nobody can leave in the middle of the night, so the limit matters more here than most places.
CARRIAGE HALL · KM 268
Panelled like a sleeping car, and about as quiet.
No machines · No screens · Casino entry 18+
km 268 Casino hotel dining
Everything came
up on the 15:42.
One kitchen serves the whole casino hotel from the goods shed. Deliveries arrive twice a day by rail and nothing else arrives at all, which makes the menu shorter and considerably more honest than most.
All day · 07:00–22:00
The waiting room
Coffee, soup and a fire, open to anyone who steps off a train — including people with twenty minutes before the next one and no intention of staying.
Plan a stay →Nightly · 18:00–01:00
The buffer bar
The bar inside the casino, at the end where the buffers still are. Norwegian aquavit, a short whisky list, and a longer list of drinks with nothing in them.
See the casino →1 214 m Out on the plateau
Above the treeline,
in every direction.
The high plateau is one of the largest mountain plains in Europe and there is nothing on it. Three things worth stepping off the platform for.
Mar–May · full day
Ski touring, hut to hut
Marked routes to staffed huts a day's ski apart. Go with a guide the first time; the plateau removes landmarks in about ten minutes of weather.
Jul–Sep · 6 hrs
Up to the glacier edge
A walk over bare rock to the snout of the ice, which is measurably further back than it was when the line was built.
All year · 2 hrs
The navvies' route
The old construction road above the tunnels, with the barracks foundations and the memorial to the men who did not get down again.
3 nights Casino hotel package
The Crossing.
The stay most people take at this casino hotel: a gable room, all meals, a guided day out on the plateau, the sauna throughout, and an introduction to the casino if you want one.
Check dates →- Gable Room3 nights
- All mealsIncluded
- Guided day on the plateauWeather permitting
- SaunaThroughout
- Casino introductionOptional · 18+
- From13 400 NOK
? Casino FAQ
Casino
questions.
What this casino hotel page is, who may enter the casino, and how casino gambling is actually handled in Norway.
No. Vardheim Casino Hotel is an invented Norwegian casino hotel, built to demonstrate casino hotel content and responsive web design. It takes no bookings, holds no gambling licence and processes no payments. The station, the rates and the casino are all fictional. Mountain station hotels with no road access do exist in Norway; casinos in them do not.
No licensed land-based casinos. Norway runs gambling as a state monopoly through Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto, supervised by Lotteritilsynet. A casino hotel with a casino floor could not legally operate anywhere in Norway, at sea level or at 1 214 metres.
Because the limits are built into the games rather than left to the player. Norsk Tipping applies mandatory registered play, so nobody gambles anonymously, along with compulsory deposit and loss ceilings that apply whether or not a player asks for them. The stated purpose of the monopoly is harm reduction rather than revenue, and the limits are the main instrument.
Adults aged 18 and over, with valid photo identification. Eighteen is the minimum gambling age in Norway. In this concept the casino is open to hotel guests and to anyone who has stepped off a train and can prove their age, subject to capacity.
It should, and in this concept it does. A guest who wants to stop cannot simply drive away, so the casino closes hard at one, the host holds you to the limit you set on arrival rather than the one you feel like at midnight, and there is a night porter whose job includes noticing. Isolation is a reason for more care, not less.
Decide a limit in money and in time before you walk across the yard, and only play with money you can afford to lose. Never borrow to gamble and never chase a loss. If it stops being fun, stop. In Norway, Hjelpelinjen is free and confidential, and Norsk Tipping operates deposit and loss limits and voluntary self-exclusion for anyone who asks.