A gaming cafe is a venue that rents out gaming PCs and consoles by the hour. You pay for time, sit down at a machine that is already set up with the games and your accounts, and play. Many also sell food and drinks, and many run tournaments. This directory tracks 243 of them in 8 countries: three sizes, and three kinds that play by rules of their own.
Venues tracked
243
in 54 cities and 10 airports
PCs counted
5,095
across 164 venues that publish a figure
Open past midnight
176
43 of them never close
Inside airports
14
all past security
Three sizes of gaming cafe
The word covers rooms that have little in common apart from the machines. The first thing that separates them is how many seats they have, and that decides most of the rest: whether a group of ten can sit together, whether there is a tournament on Saturday, how often the hardware gets replaced.
The big floor · 40 PCs and up
40 venues
Rows of identical machines, tournaments at the weekend, food on site and long hours. This is where teams practise and where a group of ten can sit together.
For example Escape Portal in Perth with 78 PCs, Cooper’s eSports near Anaheim with 74, or G-Castle in Brisbane, 67 PCs and open around the clock.
The neighbourhood club · 15 to 39 PCs
74 venues
The most common size. A room you can walk into on a weeknight, often with consoles, racing simulators or a retro corner beside the PCs, and a regular crowd.
For example Game Republik in Austin with 22 PCs, racing sims and VR, or XP Tavern in London, 25 PCs next to a bar.
The small room · under 15 PCs
43 venues
Fewer seats, and often newer hardware than the big floors — a small room can afford to replace ten machines at once.
For example Esports Automate near Anaheim, five PCs on RTX 4090 cards, or Gala Box Hill in Melbourne, ten PCs on RTX 5070, open 24/7.
Three kinds that work differently
Size explains most rooms but not all of them. Three kinds answer a different question — not how many seats, but who is allowed in, when, and what you are really paying for.
The airport lounge · past security
14 lounges
Nobody travels to one. What matters is whether it is in your terminal, how far it is from your gate and whether it is open for your flight. Rates are several times the going rate on the ground.
See the airport gaming lounges hub — twelve Gameway rooms in US airports and Game Space at Dubai, the only one open 24 hours.
The campus arena · two price columns
10 arenas
Run by a university and open to people with no connection to it, at a published visitor rate above the student one. Hours follow the academic calendar rather than the gaming one, and breaks close the doors.
The largest floor on this whole list bar one is Saints Esports Nexus in Windsor, 110 PCs at C$3 an hour. See which campus arenas let outsiders in and what they charge.
How big gaming cafes actually are
Size is the one fact a map listing never tells you, so we count it. Of the 164 venues with a figure, none reaches 100 PCs; the biggest floors we record sit between 40 and 80.
The same colours mark every venue on this site: turquoise for 40 PCs and up, blue for 15 to 39, pink under 15, grey where the venue publishes no figure. How the counts were made is on the methodology page.
What an hour costs
Venues price by the hour, the day or the month, and plenty keep prices off their websites altogether. These are the published hourly rates on our list, city venues only, with airport lounges on their own line:
| Country | Hourly rate | In USD | In EUR | Based on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $2.50 – $30 | $2.50 – $30 | ≈ €2.18 – €26.13 | 41 venues publish one |
| United Arab Emirates | AED 10 – AED 40 | ≈ $2.72 – $10.89 | ≈ €2.37 – €9.49 | 18 venues publish one |
| Australia | A$2.50 – A$20 | ≈ $1.78 – $14.23 | ≈ €1.55 – €12.39 | 15 venues publish one |
| Singapore | S$2 – S$4.50 | ≈ $1.57 – $3.53 | ≈ €1.37 – €3.07 | 7 venues publish one |
| United Kingdom | £4 – £8 | ≈ $5.35 – $10.70 | ≈ €4.66 – €9.32 | 6 venues publish one |
| Canada | C$3 – C$8.50 | ≈ $2.14 – $6.07 | ≈ €1.87 – €5.29 | 5 venues publish one |
| South Korea | ₩3000 | $3000 | ≈ €2613.01 | 2 venues publish one |
| Ireland | €4 | $4 | ≈ €3.48 | 1 venue publish one |
| US airport lounges | $29.95 | $29.95 | ≈ €26.09 | 12 lounges, one price list |
USD and EUR figures are approximate, converted at exchange rates fixed on 18 September 2026 (European Central Bank reference rates of 17 September 2026). The UAE dirham is pegged to the US dollar.
Rates are published by the venues in local currency; the dollar and euro columns are there so you can compare them. Airport lounges cost several times more than a seat in town — you are paying for being next to the gate.
Gaming cafe vs internet cafe
An internet cafe sells access to the internet. The machines are office PCs, and the point is email, documents, printing and scanning. In much of the world the category has drifted towards copy shops and document services.
A gaming cafe sells access to hardware you probably do not own: discrete graphics cards, high-refresh monitors, mechanical keyboards, proper headsets, low-latency connections. Nobody goes to a gaming cafe to print something.
The line is blurrier than it sounds. In Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth people search for gaming venues as internet cafes, and many of the rooms there use the name — Melbourne has five, all open past midnight.
Other names for the same thing
- Gaming lounge — essentially a synonym. In the US it is the common name for the venues themselves, and the only name used for the rooms inside airports.
- PC cafe — emphasises PCs, as opposed to venues built around consoles or VR.
- LAN center and esports center — older and newer names for rooms built around team play and tournaments.
- LAN shop and cyber cafe — what the same rooms are called in Singapore, where hourly rates start at S$2.
- PC bang — the Korean original, open around the clock with food brought to your seat. It has its own guide: what is a PC bang.
What to look for
- Current-generation graphics cards. Venues that publish their hardware are marked on their page with a Setup block.
- Monitors at 144 Hz or better — the fastest we record run at 600 Hz.
- Hourly rates, day passes and memberships listed openly, not only at the counter.
- Opening hours that match yours: 176 venues on our list stay open past midnight.
- A published PC count, so you know whether your group of five will sit together.
To find one near you, start from the city list or a country page such as the United States, UAE or Australia.
Questions about gaming cafes
What is a gaming cafe?
A venue that rents gaming PCs and consoles by the hour, usually with food and drinks and often with tournaments. You pay for time rather than for the games.
How much does a gaming cafe cost?
On our list, published hourly rates run from about $2 to $12 in US cities, AED 10 to AED 40 in the UAE and S$2 to S$4.50 in Singapore. Airport lounges charge more, around $30 an hour.
What is the difference between a gaming cafe and a gaming lounge?
Very little. Gaming lounge is the more common name for the venues in the US, and the only name used for rooms inside airports; gaming cafe is what most people type when they search for one nearby.
How many PCs does a gaming cafe have?
The most common size on our list is 15 to 39 PCs, just under half of all venues. The largest floors we record have 70 to 80 PCs, and none reaches 100.