Three bidders still hoping to run casinos
OLG still looking to award 20-year lease on Falls properties
Two of the five groups vying for a 20-year lease to run the two Niagara Falls casinos have reportedly dropped out of the race.
The two Canadian bidders – the Great Canadian Gaming Corp. and Gateway Casinos and Entertainment Ltd. – pulled out, leaving American companies Hard Rock Café International Inc., Caesars Entertainment Corp. and Mohegan Sun Inc. - in the race.
Online sites EuropeanGaming.eu and CasinoReports.ca, as well as the Globe and Mail, reported that aggressive offers by those three drove up the value of the Niagara casino deal, forcing the two to exit.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. announced in 2016 plans to modernize its casino holdings by awarding 20-year leases to private firms, through a bidding process, to run the gaming halls.
In Niagara, Casino Niagara and the Niagara Fallsview Casino would be included as a single bundle.
In return for paying a yearly tax to the province, the private firms would receive the casino revenue and be responsible for operating the casinos as well as the costs to modernize or expand the sites.
Caesars, one of the world’s largest casino operators, already runs Casino Windsor.
In addition to being the largest employer in Niagara Falls, the two casinos are an important revenue source for the municipality in the form of payments it receives as a host city.
In 2017, OLG sent $26.2 million to the City of Niagara Falls under that agreement.
Last year, the city and Niagara Region jointly requested a judicial review of OLG’s modernization plan, calling on it to stop its search for an operator.
Based on a consultants’ report that estimated the OLG plan could lead to as many as 1,400 jobs being lost, the city and Region wanted the process restarted with economic development and job creation as its main priorities.
As well, under the modernization plan the Niagara Falls casinos would only be marketed as far as Hamilton, with the area beyond that seen as territory for a large, new casino at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto.
The city and Region later withdrew that request.
Currently, a 5,000-seat performance hall is under construction on Stanley Avenue, at a projected cost of $130 million. It will replace the smaller, existing Avalon Ballroom at the Niagara Fallsview Casino.
The province’s agreement with Falls Management Co., the current operator of the two Niagara Falls casinos, expires June 10, 2019.