Inside Asian Gaming

101 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS what appears to be a losing battle for a downtown casino to the city’s voters. With nine of the members having voted in favor of the proposal, albeit with some 50 conditions, and a yes vote from a skeptical City Council increasingly unlikely, the casino’s most vocal advocate says he will force a referendum, which itself would be problematic given the time line—it wouldn’t go to the polls until next year—and the potential political fallout. The timing is perhaps the biggest issue. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, which is pushing a casino in Canada’s largest city as the centerpiece of its strategy to privatize gaming in the province, says it wants an answer one way or the other this spring and has already prepared a list of alternate host communities in the metropolitan area. The OLG believes privatization, which includes dismantling Ontario’s racinos and replacing them with upwards of 29 commercial casinos, will add C$1 billion to a depleted provincial treasury. Any lengthy delay in Toronto would impair the agency’s ability to implement it. The OLG tried at one point to sway the issue with a promise of a hosting fee for the city that was far greater than its established revenue-sharing formula for the rest of the province, but that sparked a storm of protest from other cities and was shot down by Premier Kathleen Wynne. Mounting opposition to a downtown casino—from councilors, health experts, community organizations, small businesses, academics, religious leaders and an array of current and former political figures—has been frustrating for Mr Ford, who showed up at a union-organized pro-casino rally the morning of the executive committee vote and promptly crashed head-on into a television camera.“It’s either no or yes,”he said afterward.“If it’s a yes, thank you very much, appreciate your support for creating 10,000 good-paying jobs. And if it’s a no, then I guess that becomes an election issue.” A Toronto Star survey shows 25 of the 44 councilors saying they intend to vote against the casino plan when the issue comes before them on the 21st of this month— two more than the majority required to kill it. The executive committee’s conditions, which also would require approval by City Council, were first outlined in a report by City Manager Joe Pennachatti. They include a 50-50 revenue split with the OLG with a minimum of $100 million for Toronto, which has already been nixed by Ms Wynne; a cap on gaming space of 135,000 square feet; more convention facilities; and a “social contract” requiring the selected casino operator to implement plans to mitigate problem gambling and other potential negative impacts. Would-be operators include two leading Las Vegas-based casino corporations: MGM Resorts International, which has partnered with local property developers Cadillac Fairview, and Caesars Entertainment and its Ohio casino partner, businessman Dan Gilbert. Canadian real estate conglomerate Oxford Properties Group has also outlined a proposal. Casino giants Las Vegas Sands andWynn Resorts have expressed interest as well. Tiny Cyprus Gambling on Casinos Embattled Cyprus, poster child of the EU’s sovereign debt crisis, is planning to license casinos in a bid to lure big-spending tourists and keep Cypriots from pursuing their gambling fix in the Turkish- occupied northern half of the island. President Nicos Anastasiades says casinos are part of a larger plan to rejuvenate an economy that is expected to shrink by 13% over the next couple of years and with unemployment projected to soar despite a pending €10 billion bailout (US$13 billion) by international lenders. The tiny Mediterrenean country of less than 1 million people will shoulder €13 billion of overall bailout costs mainly by seizing up to 80% of bank deposits of more than €100,000 and by breaking up the moribund Laiki Bank and folding its performing assets into the Bank of Cyprus. Plans are also in the works to distribute state- and church-owned land for cultivation and to allow individuals to stay on as renters whose homes or businesses are at risk of being seized because they’re unable to service their mortgages. Mr Anastasiades, who was elected in February in part on a pledge to legalize gambling, says the island will contribute €21 million to help subsidize salaries for 6,000 jobless that will be hired in the tourism sector. Casino Busted at Moscow University Police in Moscow have shut down an illegal casino operating on the premises of a public university. The gambling den, located at Moscow State University of Instrument Engineering and Infomatics, was taking in 3 million to 5 million rubles a day (US$97,000-$161,000), according to an announcement by the Interior Ministry reported by RIA Novosti . Police confiscated four card tables, three roulette tables, 70 slot machines counterfeited from a well-known global manufacturer and other gambling paraphernalia. A law passed by the State Duma in July 2009 at the urging of President Vladimir Putin effectively dismantled the country’s thriving casino industry by banning it from major cities and exiling it to four outlying “zones”: one on the lower Don River near the Sea of Azov, one in Kaliningrad, one in Central Asia and one on the Pacific coast around Vladivostok. The effect has been to drive much of the business underground where it is subject to periodic police crackdowns. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford