Step inside our history
Meet Ces Doyle, who signed an ore-exchange lease in 1974 and dealt the first hand where the ledger desk used to stand.
Meet the checker who dealt the first hand
The building went up in 1922 as a counting-house for the mining leases along the line of lode, its thick walls built to keep the heat off the scales inside.
By the early 1970s the ore had thinned out and the counting-house sat empty, until Ces Doyle, formerly a checker at the old Barrier Silver Exchange, took on the lease in 1974.
Doyle brought in one card table and one house rule — nothing played for money — and left the Wattlecourto name exactly as the lease had been chartered back in 1938.
1922
The counting-house is built for the Barrier Silver Exchange.
1938
The Wattlecourto lease is chartered on the same block of Argent Street.
1974
Ces Doyle takes the empty lease and deals the first hand.
Today
Six tables, one dealer, and a counter that never outgrew its corner.
Read this before you join
We open membership to anyone eighteen and over who can show photo ID at the door.
We welcome guests alongside a member, though our house dealer keeps the final say on seating.
There is no joining fee and no online sign-up — membership starts the moment you walk in.
We still run Doyle's one house rule, unchanged since 1974: nothing here is ever played for money.