Gateway Casino’s & Entertainment, Canada’s largest private casino operator says that they want a lower lease payment on the Western Fair District, or they would like buy that land since they are making a big expansion plan for their existing facility and promising that would generate 140 million dollars for the local economy.
Regarding this, Phil Squire, Councilor for the city expresses his opinions.
“First of all, there are going to be 700 jobs which is pretty important, they (Gateway) indicated they will be using and buying services in London and that also going to create a certain amount of GNP or growth by having hotels and restaurants. What they are really going to do is to attract more money to London so that is a good thing.”
He also mentions how this expansion will adapt with local market.
“They are very conscious of their market, they are looking into local market so they have sized it to really match with the London market which I was very interested to.”
This expansion plan by far looks beautiful, more options for customers, but does that guarantee that there will be more gambling? Darren Chapman, Economics Professor at Fanshawe College gives us another perspective.
“There is some evidence to say that it probably won’t happen. When we look at what is happening with gambling in Windsor, Windsor is basically starting to lose gambling revenue. When we look at other sectors we start to see it level off or sometime decrease so by putting more gambling facilities available doesn’t necessarily mean there is going to be more gambling.”
Plus, he has a different opinion about the expansion being able to adapt with the size of local market.
“There is only 380,000 people in London and surrounding area. If you are going to increase the revenue to 1.5 times in the next five years then you are going to really increase dramatically the amount of gambling that is going on in the community and that becomes the problem for them.”
