THE RAW FACTS ABOUT PARAGON GAMING’S PROPOSED EDGEWATER CASINO EXPANSION AT B.C. PLACE
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Connection with B.C. Place Stadium: direct link to stadium attendees, with a separated walkway directly to the casino from corporate suites.
Size of gambling space in the expanded Edgewater Casino: 2 football fields
Size of this casino compared to all casinos in western Canada: #1
Number of electronic slot machines in current Edgewater Casino: 520
Number of electronic slot machines in expanded Edgewater Casino: 1,500
Percentage of electronic slot revenues estimate to come from problem gamblers: 35%
Number of studies done in B.C. to determine the social, crime and financial costs of problem gamblers in this province: none
Cost of policing, addictions, suicides, fraud, courts related to problem gamblers using this casino: unknown
Estimated annual cost of a problem gambler from missed work, fraud, bankruptcies, receiverships, embezzlements: $13,200
ABOUT THE PROCESS
Date that B.C. Lottery Corporation chair Richard Turner buys shares in Paragon’s Alberta business: 2003
Date that Turner discloses that interest: 2005
Date that Turner resigns from BCLC board: late 2005
Date that Paragon Gaming purchases Edgewater Casino out of bankruptcy and installs Turner on the board of Paragon: summer 2006
Amount of donation by Richard Turner to B.C. Liberals while Paragon’s bid is awaiting a decision by Pavco in 2009: $50,000
Time between Pavco’s invitation to two short-listed companies responding to a request for expressions of interest in this $450-million project and its announcement of Paragon as the preferred proponent: less than 11 weeks
Normal time for big government projects to determine the best proponent, according to Partnerships B.C.: 12-16 months.
Number of minutes spent debating Edgewater’s expanded casino by Vancouver City Council: 0
ABOUT BROKEN PROMISES TO THE CITY OF VANCOUVER
Projected return of expanded Edgewater casino to City of Vancouver: $10 million in new revenue from gambling
Projected revenue to City of Vancouver from Edgewater’s original casino in 2004: $10-12-million in new revenues
Actual annual return of Edgewater Casino to City of Vancouver over the past two years: $6.3 million
Promise to arts groups and charities in 2004: increased funding
What charities got in 2010: 14% less than they got in 1995
What BC Lottery Corporation got in 2010: about three times as much revenue as 1995.
Promise to bingo players and their funding recipients in 2004: New Planet Bingo hall at Edgewater
Status of promise in 2011: Never delivered
ABOUT PARAGON GAMING
Number of slot machines in Paragon’s only Las Vegas operation, a sports bar: 15
Source of Paragon’s financing for Vancouver: unknown
Number of jobs promised by Paragon in 2010 bid for a casino in Missouri: 573
Number of jobs calculated by the Missouri Department of Economic Development for the same project: 280
Estimated annual revenue by Paragon in Missouri bid: $103.4 million
Estimated real new annual revenue calculated by the Missouri independent review of the same project: $21.7 million
Status of Paragon bids to build casinos in Sugar Creek, Missouri; Moncton, New Brunswick; Oxnard, California; and Ventura County, California: all failed
Answer of Unite Here, a union of 100,000 gaming workers across North America, to the question: “Is Paragon really the right company to take on this project?”: “no”
Disturbing event that occurred at Paragon’s Cree River Casino outside Edmonton in August 2010: customer murdered after a fight in a lounge that spilled outside.
ABOUT CRIME AND GAMBLING IN B.C.
The two best places to meet gangsters in B.C., according to Fred Pinnock, former Commander, Integrated Illegal Gambling Enforcement Team: in jails and in casinos
Hours of shifts of loan sharks at River Rock Casino revealed in Oct. 2006 murder trial of loan shark Lily Li: 24/7
Percentage increase in gambling-related crime reported by Richmond RCMP after River Rock’s establishment: 400%
Percentage of money-laundering and terrorism financing cases discovered in 2008-9 that took place in casinos, according to FINTRAC: 20%
Date that RCMP’s Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team issued a report to the provincial government warning of “extreme vulnerability” of casino industry to organized crime–money laundering, infiltration, loan sharking: January, 2009
Date that B.C.’s Integrated Illegal Gambling Enforcement Team was disbanded by the provincial government: February, 2009
Date that BC Lottery Corporation was fined $670,000 by FINTRAC for repeated failure to monitor suspicious transactions, the first fine of its kind in Canada: Summer, 2010
Number of dollars involved in suspicious cash transactions at 2 casinos in Metro Vancouver, including $460k in 20’s in plastic bags, and a suitcase with $1.2 million in casino chips, revealed by CBC in 2010: $8 million.
Reaction of Insp. Baxter, head of RCMP Proceeds of Crime Unit, to these transactions: “suspicious”
Reaction to these transactions of Rich Coleman, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor-General, also in charge of raising revenues through gambling in B.C.: “not suspicious”
Number of sentences in Vancouver city staff’s 55-page report on the B.C. Place rezoning mentioning organized crime or money-laundering: 1
ABOUT THE ECONOMIC CASE
Amount listed in Deloitte report on this project as an annual capital payback from B.C. Lottery Corporation to Paragon: $16.9 million
Estimated increase in business over Edgewater’s current revenues: 180%
Percentage of North American casino customers who live within 45 minutes of the casino: 90%
Paragon’s estimate of the number of gamblers expected to come to Vancouver every day exclusively to gamble in the new casino and stay in its 648 new hotel rooms: 548.
Feb. 2011 comment by veteran hotel broker Angus Wilkinson on the demand for new hotels needed in the city: “This city doesn’t need another single hotel room.”
Amount that would have to be charged per night for a new hotel to survive financially in Vancouver, according to Wilkinson: $400/night
Average hotel room rate in Vancouver in 2010: $166/night