City fourth-quarter gambling revenue: $538K

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation has issued a fourth-quarter revenue payment of $538,343 to Greater Sudbury for hosting OLG Slots at Sudbury Downs.

To date, Sudbury has received more than $33.9 million in gaming revenue from a revenue-sharing agreement dating back to the 1990s.

In a news release, Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault said revenue from OLG gaming sites allow municipalities to invest in infrastructure and support community initiatives.

“The people of Ontario benefit from these gaming revenues through provincial investment in key public services like health care and education,” Thibeault said in the release.

The payments are calculated according to a formula in the Municipality Contribution Agreement that determines the fee municipalities receive for hosting an OLG gaming facility and are based on an escalating scale of gaming revenue that is the same across all sites in Ontario.

The OLG provides the Ontario government with its largest source of non-tax revenue, averaging about $2 billion a year. A planned modernization – which includes plans to build standalone casinos in places such as Greater Sudbury – is intended to enable the OLG to provide more money to Ontario for hospitals and other government priorities.

However, the casino plan is years behind schedule. OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti said in an email there is still no schedule in place for when they hope to build a casino in Northern Ontario.

"OLG has not yet issued the request for proposal (RFP) for the Northern Gaming Bundle as we currently in the final phases of the RFP for the East Gaming Bundle,” Bitonti wrote.

“A decision was made to take all the complex learnings from the process around the East Gaming Bundle RFP and apply that knowledge to the rest of the RFPs ... including the Northern Gaming Bundle.”

While he would only say the RFP for the North will be issued “in the coming months,” Bitonti did say that a successful bidder for the East Gaming Bundle should be in place for the middle of the year.
And the list of potential suitors for the North has been shortlisted to between three and five proponents, he said.


They “will be invited to participate in the RFP once it is issued,” Bitonti said. “In order to maintain the integrity of the procurement process, details such as the names of the pre-qualified proponents will not be released while the process is ongoing."