In the cation of the title salt, C17H23N2O+·Br-, the adamantyl moiety and the pyridiniminium ring are inclined to the ketone bridge by torsion angles of -78.1 (2) (C-C-C=O) and 58.3 (2)° (C-C-N-C), respectively, and the ketone bridge has a C-C-C-N torsion angle of 174.80 (15)°. In the crystal, the cations are connected into chains parallel to the c axis by C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds. The chains are further linked into layers parallel to the bc plane by N-H⋯Br and C-H⋯Br hydrogen bonds, C-H⋯π inter-actions and π-π stacking inter-actions [centroid-to-centroid distance = 3.5657 (11) Å]. A Hirshfeld surface analysis, which comprises the dnorm surface, electrostatic potential map and two-dimensional fingerprint plots, was carried out to verify the contribution of the various inter-molecular inter-actions.