Interestingly, in the UK there is a close connection between the cafes and casinos.

The ownership chain starts with Rank Group plc, who are a large leisure group. They own Grosvenor Casinos (who operate a number of UK casinos), Mecca (who run hundreds of bingo halls), the 2 Hard Rock casinos and Hard Rock Cafe International inc., who run the cafes.

The website does have links to the Vegas Casino, so from a marketing perspective, they are part of the same empire!

Jason

http://www.rank.com/rank?action=GoGrosvenorRedirectIndex&nav=IE