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I get a kick out of these articles, here in southern Ontario the provincial government are calling it subsidies, they take 80% of the profits and divide the other 20% between 17 tracks. The provincial government has absolutely nothing to do with the running of the slots except for giving it the ok to let it happen, if anything the tracks are subsidizing the province. Now they want to remove the slots completely from the tracks, open up a large casino in the downtown area (which 70% of the people polled don't want) and reep all the profits for the province. Then they have the audacity to say this will create 2300 jobs, well what about the 60 000 jobs horse racing directly and indirectly create's each year? Your telling me you would rather see an ungodly amount of people collecting unemployment so 2300 can work a casino? That no one wants!
There are two casino's within an hour of Toronto, how do you think the new casino will affect Casinorama and Fallsview? My guess would be devastating, i think it's better served if things were left they way they are, putting a casino on the doorstep of a problem gambler is irresponsible. The way it is set up now is probably doing the gambler a favor, having to drive an hour will probably save him some dough in the long run. The two older casino's will definately feel the effect as well as the town or city they reside in, that's a whole other can of worms.
I really don't see why the slots at the tracks and the new casino can't coexist, the bottom line is people won't drive out of there way to play some slots with today's gas prices. They both will turn a hefty profit and no one will have their job torn out from underneath them. The business model that Dalton McGuinty is about to put in place is flawed, and i'm not saying this as a biased horseplayer but as a concerned taxpayer, do you really think the casino profits will cover the unemployment and retraining of that many people? I don't think so....... c'mon man use your head!
Your about to kill one of Canada's oldest industries only to create new problems the public can already foresee. You want to rape the public of all their disposable income with this restructuring of legal sports betting and casino's all because of your mismanagement of taxpayer's money. How does a city with 8 billion in annual municipal taxes only receive 1 billion in services?
I don't know how the slots are regulated in the U.S. but i take it from alot of you the slots are not the answer to the problems with the game down south. But from what i have seen from Woodbine in the last ten years is the track is thriving and used as a model at some American tracks. The feds take 5% of the pools at Woodbine as well as the "subsidies" it creates for the province, why would you want to mess with that? If anything you should be building on that, not trying to take it away.
This story isn't over yet, from what i understand the industry and the general public have unleashed a shit storm on the provincial government, hopefully someone with some basic logic is listening.
As usual, Dalton......... your not even qualified to sweep the floors, maybe you can get a job mucking stalls when your ousted in the next election..... that's if the tracks still exist.
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