It is a gaming and entertainment venue since early 1930s, the building has a Garnier-inspired modernist style and, since 1977, it is listed by IGESPAR, the Portuguese Institute of National Monuments.

[citation needed] The table games most popular with gamblers are Banca Francesa, Roulette, Blackjack and Baccarat.

Egoísta Restaurant in the Casino offers haute cuisine of local and Portuguese cuisine presented in a gourmet version, the restaurant is surrounded by an art gallery, exhibiting paintings from some of the finest Portuguese artists such as Graça Morais, Júlio Resende, Nikias Skapinakis or Rogério Ribeiro.

[1] Póvoa de Varzim was a Northern Portugal's upper-class beach resort in the 19th century, before the popularization of sea baths and sun baths by the general population, and a prominent site for gambling, with seventeen casinos, frequently in the back-doors of cafés and pubs, the most famous of which was Café Chinês ("Chinese Café"), known in Portugal for its exotic decoration and Spanish dancers.

Camilo Castelo Branco recurrently visited Póvoa de Varzim to gamble.