Saltbush Court is a restaurant first and a casino room second

One rule holds the room together before any cards are dealt: nobody plays for cash. You arrive, you take a seat, and the chips in front of you are worth nothing beyond the game itself — that's the whole arrangement, and it hasn't changed since the court was roofed over.

You're sitting in what was once a produce and stock exchange court just off Hannan Street, weighing out stores for the goldfields before camel trains carried them out to the mining leases. An assay office stood two doors down, a saddler traded across the street, and the yard behind the stores was left to saltbush — nothing else would grow in the dust, which is where the name comes from. Most of those neighbours are gone, but a bakery and a hardware supplier still trade either side of the court today.