What the city’s finance committee wants

Besides telling the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. that Ottawa only wants a casino at the Rideau Carleton Raceway and only one that includes 21 gaming tables on top of the 1,250 slot machines the track already has, city council’s finance committee asked the agency to honour several detailed operating conditions:

Limit hours of casino operation: no 24-hour access to venues, closed at least six hours per day;

Restrict the number of electronic gaming machines (EGMs) and slow down machine speed of play; prohibit features that promote false beliefs of the odds of winning;

Eliminate casino loyalty programs;

Prohibit ATMs on the gambling floor;

Prohibit casino credit and holding accounts; Reduce maximum bet size; Mandate a daily loss maximum;

Implement strong casino self-exclusion programs, including a mandatory player card system;

Issue monthly individual patron statements that include full membership medians and averages to compare against personal record of loss, frequency and duration of play;

Designate areas for alcohol purchase and not provide alcohol service on casino floors to reduce impaired judgment. The conditions are borrowed from the city’s public-health department, which proposed them to the Board of Health last week. The finance committee approved them 8-3. It didn’t consider the board’s vote to ask that the province spend $1.3 million more a year on treating problem gambling in Ottawa or that 6.5 per cent of the city’s take from an expanded casino be committed to gambling prevention. Mayor Jim Watson says treating gambling addiction is the province’s job.