The biggest casinos in British Columbia experienced a stall in the growth of their revenue in 2018. This was after changes to the province’s laws concerning money laundering.
A survey carried out on the twenty biggest casinos in British Columbia showed that the average earnings of each casino rose from CAD 79.7 million (USD 6 million) in 2014 to CAD 85.6 million in 2018. However, the total of last year’s earnings was just 0.1 percent higher than what the casinos earned in 2017. This was far lesser than the annual 4.4 percent growth recorded in 2014.
Looking at the casinos that offered both table games and slot machines in 2018, the share of slots revenue increased from 71.3 percent in 2014 to 79.1 percent in 2018. While the share of tables fell from 28.7 percent to 20.3 percent over the same period.
The fall in the revenue of tables could be seen in the recent yearly report released by BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation). This report showed that the revenue from most land-based casinos, which are managed by private firms by are owned by the province fell flat at CAD 1.9 billion in the 12 months, which ended on the 31st of March. Slots increased by 2.6 percent while table games fell 7.8 percent from 2018.
Since January of last year, the casino industry in British Columbia have been faced with stricter laws as regards their source of funds. This is important for transactions over CAD 10,000.
This new law came into existence because of several reports of shady commitments to the anti-money laundering laws at some casinos in Vancouver area. This includes the casino managed by River Rock Casino Resort, i.e. the Great Canadian Gaming.
According to Calvin Ayre, The stats from BIV show that River Rock is leading all British Columbia casinos with revenue of CAD 323.7 million last year. This is a 22.9 percent fall from its haul in 2014. However, among the top five casinos in the province, the tables at River Rock scored highest when it came to table revenue, averaging $1.7 million for each table.
The Grand Villa Casino, situated in Burnaby, came second when it came to gaming revenue. The only casino in the BC’s downtown core, Parq Vancouver, ranked third. Cascades Casino Langley and Hard Rock Casino Vancouver came in Fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Parq has found it difficult to make a profit since its opening in September 2017 but was lucky to find a sliver lining this spring. Local by-laws limit Parq’s gaming floor to just 75 tables and 600 slots, but the BIV survey carried out showed that these gaming positions have not been able to live up to expectations.
Even though Parq just has half of the number of slots its rival has, each of the casino’s slots earned CAD145,741 last year. This was way higher than what the other top five venues earned in the same period.
Parq happens to be the only venue in BC to generate such a high revenue from tables than slots.
eTable and slots revenue may be lower on across the province after BCLC disclosed its new too for members of the Encore Rewards program, this tool is the PlayPlanner time and budgeting tool.
This tool allows players to to time and spending limits before time. In addition, it also creates on-screen notifications for players who are about to exceed these pre-set limits.
