Niagara Falls, Ont. currently has two casinos owned by Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. but managed by Connecticut-based Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. Premier Doug Ford is interested in changing the deal with the current casino operator.Martin Bertrand/Reuters
Rob Csernyik is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and a 2022 Michener-Deacon fellow.
It can’t be said that Ontarians don’t dream big when it comes to casinos. From the 1969 proposal of a jumbo-jet airport in Picton with a casino open only to travellers, through the more recent debates over a downtown Toronto gambling palace, creating the ultimate casino tourist trap has been a dream of politicians and industry players for decades. Premier Doug Ford’s recent comments supporting a Canadian Vegas in Niagara Falls are nothing new.
Mr. Ford is interested in changing the deal with the current casino operator in Niagara Falls, according to reporting from The Trillium, a news outlet covering Queen’s Park. The city currently has two casinos owned by Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. but managed by Connecticut-based Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority. Casino Niagara and Fallsview Casino Resort are among Canada’s most lucrative casinos and well-positioned to receive American clients owing to their border proximity. The objective seems to be increasing competition to improve the tourist offering and bring in new visitors from south of the border.
In theory, this could happen. But in practice, the establishment of a Vegas-style district in Canada has never been realized on a grand scale. Niagara Falls is about as close as Canadians get to a Vegas of the North, and now, nearly two decades into it being a casino destination, we’re learning it is not quite Vegasy enough for some.
Mr. Ford and his colleagues, who have no shortage of massive, transformative plans for the province, would be wise to reflect on why this dream keeps going unfulfilled. A Canadian Vegas is a dream long past its expiration date, a holdover of a time when fewer casinos dotted the landscape and gambling habits were different. Today, millennials and Gen Z are less apt to visit casinos than their parents and grandparents, and the rise of online gambling means some players avoid the venues altogether.
As someone writing a book about Canada’s casino history, it’s maddening to watch this cycle of selling industry expansion based on tourism repeat itself. We have little to no provincial or national data, from governments or tourism organizations, that show a link between the two in Canada. Academic research on Canada’s casinos and tourism exists, though much of it is out of date.
A few years back, I investigated how Nova Scotia’s casinos performed with tourists and found a disconnect. While tourism numbers and the dollar amounts they spent were rising, casino revenues didn’t enjoy a commensurate increase. This is, arguably, the fate of most jurisdictions. Niagara Falls, admittedly, is better poised to attract tourist dollars owing to its U.S. border location. But that doesn’t make a Vegas-like renaissance a more likely prospect.
In 1994, when the Ontario government opened its first casino in Windsor, it was the only one in the province. With none in nearby Michigan and Ohio, it was, for a time, considered one of the most successful in the world. Today, it’s a different story. Three casinos dot the Detroit skyline, and there are more than 30 in Ontario, including recently opened casino resorts in Pickering and Toronto, which compete for tourist attention with their current (and any future) Niagara Falls counterparts.
If the province wants to double down on casino tourism in Niagara Falls, for instance, it may cannibalize market share from these other OLG-owned, though privately managed, properties. That’s before considering the potential negative effects of putting casinos in a community. Research suggests the total number of electronic gambling machines in a jurisdiction, whether slot machines in casinos or video lottery terminals in bars and restaurants, is linked to the prevalence of gambling harms such as addiction.
The prospect of expanding the Niagara Falls casino offerings also ignores the challenge faced by competition from casinos in New York State. Nothing will stop the American side of Niagara Falls, which already has a casino, from going tit-for-tat with their own expansion. Furthermore, new casinos are expected in New York within a few years’ time. This may lead upstate New Yorkers to shift their spending to the Big Apple rather than Niagara Falls, no matter what Ontario plans to do.
The Ford government likes to gamble on big ideas, which isn’t inherently negative, but given the new expectations of tourists and the changing nature of the gambling industry, it’s worth considering other tourist magnets. This one seems like a bad bet.