Two sides of story at casino meeting
Two very different pictures of provincially run gambling facilities were presented at Tuesday evening’s Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation public meeting in Wasaga Beach – one, put forward by representatives of OLG, depicted a win-win situation for the province, the host municipality and the recreational gambler; the other, described by several health care professionals and religious leaders who stood to read statements at the end of the meeting, told of gambling addiction, personal bankruptcies and “damaged and destroyed lives.”
The meeting, held jointly by Wasaga Beach, Collingwood, Clearview Township and the Township of Springwater, drew about 500 people to the Wasaga Beach RecPlex. The four municipalities have been working together since May, when the OLG announced its restructuring plans and indicated that an opportunity existed for a 300-slot gaming facility somewhere within what it calls “Zone C7” – an area encompassing parts of each municipality. The turnout was apparently the largest that representatives of the OLG have seen in a series of similar meetings across the province, and support for a casino in the area seemed evenly split among the crowd.
The evening began with a presentation from the OLG, followed by a question period where members of the public submitted their questions to their respective Mayors, who in turn posed the questions to the OLG. Finally, there was an opportunity for audience members to make a five-minute statement to the Mayors and their Councils. Representatives of the OLG did not remain on stage for this portion.
Pursuing what it calls a “modernization plan,” the OLG is in the process of downloading its existing casinos to private operators while retaining its position as overseer of the gaming that takes place at the facilities. Further, it has identified 29 zones across the province where private operators will have the opportunity to establish casinos, should the targeted municipalities decide they’d like to host such a facility. Of the 29 zones, 24 have existing casinos; in those cases, the chosen private operator will have the option of taking over the present facility or relocating elsewhere within the zone. In the five zones with no present casino, including C7, new facilities will be built.
While all four municipalities in C7 will have an opportunity to vote on whether they want a casino within their own borders, the OLG representatives confirmed Tuesday night that all they are looking for is one municipality to say yes. Should more than one town vote in favour of becoming a host community, the decision will then be up to the private operator that is granted the contract for the zone from the OLG.
Much of the OLG presentation focused on the economic benefits available for host communities. Under the existing compensation structure, municipalities receive 5 per cent of the revenue from a facility’s first 450 slot machines, and 2 per cent from the remaining machines. Using the OLG slots at Hanover Raceway (where there have been about 125 machines since 2001) as an example, it was shown that the town of Hanover has received $9.7 million in the 11 years since the facility opened. In addition, about $41.5 million has been paid out to local people in wages and benefits, about $4.4 million worth of local purchases have been made by the casino, and $186,877 has been injected into the community in the form of OLG corporate sponsorship of various organizations and events.
Under the modernization program, the formula for compensation will change – host municipalities will now receive 5.25 per cent of the casino’s first $65 million of revenue, 3 per cent of the next $135 million, 2.5 per cent of the next $300 million, and 0.5 per cent of the remainder. With 300 slot machines planned for a facility in Zone C7, revenues to the host municipality could feasibly be more than double what Hanover has been receiving for the foreseeable future.
When asked whether all four Zone C7 municipalities could feasibly share the revenues from a gaming facility, the OLG said that its contract would be with the host municipality, but that ancillary agreements between municipalities could exist. Wasaga Beach Mayor Cal Patterson answered the question as well, stating that “it’s our intent to share the revenues in some way, to offset things like the wear and tear on roads used by people travelling to the casino.”
OLG director of policy and social responsibility Paul Pellizzari also spoke at length about the organization’s dedication to responsible gambling, saying that after 16 years in the casino business, it “now understands gambling problems.”
According to OLG statistics, 3.4 per cent of the adult population has a gambling problem. To ensure that these people aren’t aided and abetted by Ontario casinos, the OLG aims to be a “gold standard bearer in responsible gambling,” offering a self-exclusion program to problem gamblers, training staff members to look for “red flag” signs, and maintaining lines of communication with social services and health responders in host communities. The OLG spends approximately $40 million per year on its responsible gambling initiatives; included in that number is $28 million to provide free gambling counselling in 52 treatment centres across the province.
New technology is also being developed that will set time and money limits on slot machines and interact with people who are showing signs of problem gambling.
“We are an industry that is working on changing and is changing,” said Pellizzari. “Problem gambling is one of the biggest threats to our business model, and we are doing everything we can to deal with it.”
Questions through the Mayors to the OLG dealt with things like what kinds of salaries can be expected for employees of a casino ($40,000 to $50,000 per year on average was the answer) to casinos’ effects on nearby property values (either no effect or an uptick, according to the OLG) to whether crime tends to go up when a casino is built in a community (it doesn’t, they said).
When it finally came time for members of the public to make their statements, Collingwood physician Mark Quigg led things off with a list of 28 area doctors who had signed a letter stating their opposition to a casino in the area. He said gambling addiction is a “hidden problem,” one that is as “addicting as illegal drugs.” He spoke of people sitting for hours at slot machines wearing adult diapers so as not to give up their lucky spot, and of children being left alone in casino parking lots while their parents head inside to do some betting.
Wasaga Beach psychotherapist John Hamilton also delivered some disturbing statistics about gambling, in stark contrast to the OLG presentation. Stayner resident Laurie Vandenhurk pointed out that casinos don’t generate wealth, but instead redistribute it, and Collingwood doctor Mike Lewin wondered if it’s worth forming a partnership with an organization that spends $40 million a year to help solve the very problem it creates.
With that, the meeting was adjourned. The Town of Wasaga Beach plans to hold a second public meeting for its own residents on Wednesday, October 24, and the Town of Collingwood will do the same on Monday, October 29. At this point, Clearview Township has no plans to hold a meeting of its own.
The four municipalities are required to submit their positions on hosting a casino to the OLG by mid-November. It’s anticipated that a private operator could be in place by early next year. Zoning and site plan approvals would then be the responsibility of the host municipality, paving the way for a casino opening sometime in 2014 or 2015.
