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Gambling in Western Canada

Although riverboat casinos in the United States are on the rise, the first modern-day version of the Old Mississippi steamboats came into being in Canada a little over two decades ago.

Revenue form the riverboat operation is distributed to various worthy projects by the Klondike Visitors' Association, a non-profit organization. The casino is open seasonally in the spring and summer months.

Manitoba's Crystal Casino in Winnipeg opened in 1989 and was watched closely by the other provinces.

The casino is operated by the Manitoba Lotteries Foundation, which is planning to open two more casinos which will also be located in Winnipeg, and the revenues accumulated from the Crystal Casino are used to overhaul Manitoba's health care system.

The revenues from the two new casinos have not been earmarked for any specific purpose as yet.

The casinos in Manitoba are not like those found in the United States; they are built on a much smaller and more sedate scale. Even so, the Crystal Casino attracts approximately 600,000 visitors annually who generate revenues in excess of eleven million dollars.

Although 75 percent of the Crystal's customers are from Manitoba, the remaining visitors are mostly from other provinces and the United States. This is especially satisfying to the Manitoba government because many Canadian Casino customers had previously crossed the border into the United States to gamble in Native American casinos.

Quebec, quick to notice Manitoba's success, built two casinos, one on Montreal at the site of Expo 67 and the other in the Charlexoix region. The casino in Charlexoix is rather small, but the casino in Montreal boasts more than sixty gaming tables and over a thousand slot machines.

The government spent in excess of sixty million dollars on the building site, construction, and gaming equipment. Not to be outdone, the Ontario provincial government completed a casino in Windsor which opened to the public on may 17, 1994.

The casino is on the Detroit River, and is about the same size as the one in Montreal.

This casino is temporarily housed in an art museum overlooking the Detroit skyline. Windsor, like other Canadian cities near the United States border, has been particularly plagued by the Free Trade Agreement and the decline of the Canadian dollar against U.S. currency.

The casino hopes to lure American dollars back across the border to make up for some of the lost revenue.

Niagara Falls, Ontario, is another community that has suffered economically during recent years. The city attracts over ten million tourists annually who visit the spectacular Falls; the problem is that the tourists spend only a few hours in the area and then depart without spending the night.

In an attempt to persuade their visitors to stay longer and spend more money, city officials have applied for permission to host a casino.

They commissioned a cost/benefit study and the results indicate that the province would earn more revenues of approximately 120 million dollars annually, over 70 percent of which would be generated from outside Ontario.

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