When Dalton McGuinty was Premier of Ontario, I remember consulting with the Filipino Canadians about a study on installing a casino either in a downtown hotel or on the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) grounds along Lakeshore Avenue. During the meeting, I discussed the pros and cons of having a casino within city limits, having experienced this in my old country.

I come from a family of casino dealers, pit bosses, caterers, receptionists and yes, players. I grew up familiar with playing cards, knowledgeable of blackjack. When I was 15 years old I started to work in a casino as a card dealer. A year later, I was promoted to pit boss, the youngest of this rank in the casino. My father had already passed away and I couldn’t ask my mother to pay for my undergraduate studies so I continued working in the casino to support my studies. After 5 years, I graduated with two degrees from a Catholic university in Manila. And proceeded to take post-graduate studies but was unable to finish because Canada beckoned me. This sounds like I fully support gambling, period. Not so fast.

In the Philippines during the time that I was there, casinos benefitted everyone, from the operator down to the employees, entertainers, tailors and dressmakers, beauty salons, food providers, cab drivers. My casino employment enabled me to obtain university degrees. This was how I felt in my 20s. When I reached Canada, my feelings gradually changed. Even if the casino profits get channelled to hospital care and charitable organizations, I did not like the idea of a senior in a rollator pushing buttons of a slot machine or a middle-aged person putting bets on roulette or blackjack table. I learned of seniors in my community who babysit children of different ages during the week and blowing all their hard-earned money in the slots during weekends. Wives from rural areas get mesmerized by the casino on their first visit that they get hooked by the idea of big winnings. These, I find obscene and just sadden me. Back in the Philippines, when I was working in casinos, the players looked like they came from money – men in suits and women dressed like they were out for an evening. Here, some of the people I saw inside the casinos were old with walking disabilities, some even had oxygen reserve in their rollators.

When the casinos were established in Niagara Falls and Windsor,  the idea was to attract tourists. I don’t know how successful this was because every time I see casino buses before the pandemic, they carry mostly Orientals from the Asian community. I notice they stop in Chinatown Spadina and at the Pacific Mall in Scarborough.  Once I saw a group of tourists lined up to board the casino bus at Carlton Street only to be told that they needed a pass to do this. I was perplexed.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Act 1999 “directs gaming proceeds to provincial hospitals, sport, recreational and cultural activities, charitable organizations and non-profit corporations through the Ontario Trillium Foundation and other priority programs such as healthcare and education”. Pre pandemic, OLG raked $2.5 billion in 2019.  With the pandemic, the income was just $200 million as a result of closed casinos. The recent reopening of Ontario does not include casinos.

Back to the plan to install a casino in the downtown core – this was scrapped. A concession was arrived at by establishing a temporary casino during the 18-day duration of the CNE at the Better Living Centre. My argument against the presence of casinos in Metro Toronto remains the same: it facilitates easy access to the locals who are not the target of these casinos in the first place.