Guadeloupe is one of the two big islands in the French West Indies with casinos. When you fly into this island you can see the size and diversity of the island. There are major highways with overpasses and significant speed limits as well as large fields with crops and of course the picturesqe coastline. When you get off the plane and enter the airport terminal you also immediately know just how French of an island you are visiting. The picture above was taken in the airport and like all the island, everything is in French. This island is not like almost all of the other Caribbean islands where almost everyone speaks English. In fact it is quite the opposite. Neither my wife or I speak any French so it was an adventure. Casino workers, hotel staff and restaurant workers may or may not speak english. When playing blackjack the dealer counted your total out loud in French. The island has two disticnt different areas with different climates. One side of the island is known for mountains and waterfalls. The other side of the island is generally where most tourist will stay and it has the beaches.
From the best I can tell there have always been two casinos. One is located in St. Francois right in a little marina area. The casino now goes by Casino de la Marina. It has been this name for at least 7 years. The french fran jetons reflect this name as well as the new Euro chips. The other casino is in the city of Gosier. This casino is now called Casino du Gosier using the Euro chips. Previously it was called Caraïbe Club. Since this casino is basically at Caravelle Beach, I'm guessing is was Caravelle Beach Casino many years ago as well Gosier Casino at one time. These 2 cities are about 45 minutes away from each other.
The casinos are similar to the European style casinos. Dress code, table games open at 9:00 PM, and a valid passport is required. The casino in Gosier is the biggest of the two, but the St. Francois is the nicer of the two.
A total of 17 jetons are in my collection from the island of Guadeloupe. As far as I know I am only missing the 200 Franc jeton from Casino De La Marina. Both the current casinos had 6 plaques in the French Franc currency that surfaced in 2006 and 2007 after they went to the Euro currency. I have all 12 plaques in my collection and each of them are pictured in the plaque section of my web site. I believe these set of jetons and plaques are some of the nicest pieces of gaming pieces in all of the Caribbean.
