Is it just me, or does anyone else want to say “whoa” when they hear that we’re about to get the biggest casino in Western Canada in the centre of Vancouver?
With barely a flicker on the political noise-meter, Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming has finessed Edgewater Casino’s jump from a backwater pioneer of slots at the Plaza of Nations to a half-billion-dollar entertainment emporium straddling BC Place Stadium.
The expansion has been cleverly bundled into a pile of other public decisions about rezoning, permission to relocate, remaking street fronts, rainwater recycling, a new roof on the stadium and enough other issues to fill a 55-page report to city council.
This is not a trivial expansion of gambling in our community. The new casino floor will be triple the size of the current Edgewater gambling hall, bigger than the average Wal-Mart store.
The number of gaming tables will double to 150 from 75. The number of slot machines, the most addictive games of all, once described by a gambling supporter as the “crack cocaine of gambling,” is jumping to 1,500 from 520.
That’s 50% more slot machines than in B.C.’s current biggest casino, River Rock. This money-sucking vortex of entertainment will be fed by two hotels, six restaurants, a theatre and a cabaret – and, Paragon hopes, a parade of boozy young adults coming in and out of football and soccer games.
It will be capped with a wildly expensive publicly financed retractable roof on the stadium, a project kept in place by a phone call from Paragon director Richard Turner to cabinet minister in charge of BC Place Kevin “children-may-die-as-a-result-of-gambling-expansion” Krueger threatening to pull the casino if Krueger didn’t deliver the right roof. (Turner joined Paragon’s board six months after leaving his post as chairman of the BC Lottery Corp. in 2005.)
We’re told there won’t be any public money involved, but what happens if Chinese tourists prefer Macau, which offers immensely more gambling a lot closer to home? What if Paragon forfeits on its lease payments in a jittery international gambling business climate?
This proposed casino, on its way to a city public hearing before final approval, is only a touch smaller than the harbourfront casino proposed by Mirage Resorts in partnership with VLC Properties in 1994.
David Podmore, volunteer chairman of BC Place owner PavCo today, was head of VLC Properties then.
Back then, owner Steve Wynn was chased back to Las Vegas by a sustained public outcry over the evils of gambling, a quaint concept long since trampled in the rush to spoils.
Among the opponents in 1994 was then-opposition leader Gordon Campbell, who famously promised in 2001: “A BC Liberal government will stop the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put new strains on families.”
Today the BC Lottery Corp. is the champion of the first government-run online poker as it breaks through $2.5 billion in gross revenue.
Where does this end? More important, how is all this gambling affecting us? We really don’t know.
According to Douglas College criminologist Colin Campbell, B.C. has never had a genuine public review of gambling policies.
Who would do it when everyone’s on the take?
Vision Vancouver has already tucked away $2,500 from Edgewater and $10,500 from Great Canadian Gaming. Great Canadian gave another $35,000 to other Metro Vancouver politicians. B.C. has no arms-length agency assessing the true economic and social impact of expanded gambling.
Recent reports of suspected money laundering revealed that, while our rules may be strict, they’re not being enforced.
B.C.’s integrated illegal gambling enforcement team formed in 2003 was disbanded in 2009, yet the RCMP talks openly about regulatory loopholes that allow organized crime to launder money through casinos.
At some point someone, somewhere, has to decide “enough.”
Don’t count on Vancouver city council. It stands to increase its gambling revenue win from $7 million a year to $17 million when the Edgewater expansion passes.
Casino city, here we come.