How gambling created two of Tasmania’s biggest attractions

Think the gambling debate is something new? It was ever thus: on the one hand, it takes from those who can least afford it, but on the other gives a whole lot of pleasure to those who use it for leisure. The clincher is that governments find the funds from their cut irresistible.

It also provides a platform for tourism developers. Two of Tasmania's most significant tourist attractions - Wrest Point and Mona - owe their existence, at least in their current form, to gambling.

In the 1960s, it took a state referendum to win approval for Australia's first legal casino to be built on Hobart's waterfront; it passed on a 53 per cent majority. The project included an accommodation tower - for that, Roy Grounds, the modernist architect with buildings like the National Gallery of Victoria to his name, designed what would be (and remains) Tasmania's tallest building, complete with a revolving restaurant at the top. When it opened in 1973, VIPs flocked to the event, the tourists followed and Tasmanians embraced it for their special occasions.

Fast-forward to 2023 and for its 50th birthday, Wrest Point unveiled the better part of $65 million worth of renovations and refurbishments at the site. That includes the hotel rooms in the tower and an improved site for the casino, giving waterfront views from its tables. The Birdcage Bar has been overhauled and expanded and features some spectacularly coloured and colourful artworks. There's a new restaurant - Longhorn Smokehouse - with an open kitchen and flame grill for Tasmanian beef and seasonal vegetables.

The revolving restaurant, The Point, that opened with the tower all those years ago, remains as a fine-dining venue. It takes 77 minutes to rotate, and as if to embrace its past, offers a menu with prawns or steak diane cooked by the table flambe style.

Cabaret, highlighted in a mural on one of the Birdcage Bar walls, has long been a feature of Wrest Point, while individual entertainers over the years have been as diverse as Dame Edna and Missy Higgins; Jerry Lewis and Eartha Kitt. This coming April, the lineup includes British comedian Jimmy Carr and US American Pie singer songwriter Don McLean.

Despite the opposition that remains to gambling, particularly poker machines, Wrest Point and its owners the Federal Group - which also counts Saffire, MACq01, Henry Jones Art Hotel and the Launceston Country Club in its portfolio - are powering along.

Meanwhile, further up the Derwent River, Mona, Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art, which is accepted as building the base for Tasmania's most recent tourism renaissance, was also largely funded by gambling, albeit on the other side of the table, thanks to its founder David Walsh and his syndicate's uncanny ability to beat the house when they place their bets.

See wrestpoint.com.au

The writer was a guest of Wrest Point.