Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Ottawa Casino?

While I can appreciate the political pressures being exerted on Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson to support a casino at the Rideau Carleton Raceway, it is less than an ideal location for patrons. Whether you live in Kanata or Orleans, the Lac Leamy Casino will remain closer in distance as well as less time to get there. As casinos also rely on visitors to the city for a good portion of their revenue, the raceway location, as compared to Lac Leamy, would be almost three times the distance from the Rideau Center.

Mayor Watson knows that the Lac Leamy Casino is closer for the majority of Ottawa’s population and yet he supports a location that will be further away. If the mayor is speculating that Ottawa residents will automatically support their own casino, regardless of distance, he may want to conduct some research on the issue before embarking on a plan that could conceivably turn into a white elephant. If he doesn’t, hopefully the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will.

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