The British Columbia Lottery Corp. (BCLC) plans to expand the province’s gambling capacity by approving a second casino in the greater Victoria area and encouraging investments to upgrade other casinos in Metro Vancouver.
This comes on the heels of a banner 2014-15 fiscal year, in which the BCLC generated a record $1.25 billion in profit on more than $2.9 billion in revenue.
“The Lower Mainland is underserved [by casinos],” BCLC CEO Jim Lightbody told Business in Vancouver November 30.
Construction is underway on Parq Holdings LP’s $650 million casino resort at 39 Smithe Street, which is adjacent to BC Place.
By the end of 2016, when the project is expected to be complete, the resort will include two luxury hotels, a 60,000-square-foot conference centre, five restaurants, three lounges, retail space and a new home for the existing Edgewater Casino.
“It will be a two-level casino that has the same number of slot machines and tables as in the current casino on False Creek,” said Tamara Hicks, director of corporate affairs and strategic communications for Paragon Gaming Corp., which, along with Dundee Corp. (TSX:DC.A) and PBC VUR LP, created Parq Holdings LP.
Both Hicks and Lightbody expect that the 600 slot machines and 75 tables at the new facility will be much busier than the same slot machines and tables at the current facility.
Lightbody explained that the new casino will be in a much more central location, in what the City of Vancouver calls its entertainment district. Another thing that will attract more customers is the resort’s amenities, such as the hotels and restaurants, he said.
Great Canadian Gaming (TSX:GC) is spearheading the other major investment in gambling in Metro Vancouver – an estimated $11 million to renovate Fraser Downs, which will be renamed Elements Casino when that facility opens December 17.
Elements will have more than 550 slot machines, compared with Fraser Downs, which Great Canadian marketed as having “more than 460” slots. The transformation is similar in magnitude to Great Canadian’s $15 million remake of its Boulevard Casino in Coquitlam into Hard Rock Casino Vancouver in late 2013.
The biggest question mark surrounding gambling in B.C. is what will transpire in Victoria.
BCLC approached all of the municipalities and First Nations in greater Victoria and asked each whether it would consider being the host for a second casino in the region.
Only the District of Oak Bay flatly rejected the idea, according to Lightbody, although he said he will not know for sure which municipalities are interested until December 11, which is the deadline for proposals.
“We will have to review all of their submissions,” he said. “We’ll be looking at things such as how do we fit into their community plans, do they have any zoning restrictions, what kind of properties may be available and where they sit in the traffic patterns of the Capital Regional District.”
Finding a private operator to run the casino will come after BCLC has selected its municipal partner.
“If you go back 15 years, nobody wanted a casino,” Lightbody said. “The fact that there are more communities interested in having a casino today is testimony to the fact that a casino can add to a community, instead of doing what some might have thought it would do [to a community].
