Read more closely. These are anecdotes. Brantford mayor has been very clear: their downtown successes have been based on the things that they spent their kickback money on. We spend ours on potholes already. There has not been a single word from anyone pushing a Hamilton casino about investing the kickback into city building initiatives. So far the only person who has made a comment about spending the kickback was Bob Bratina's comments about propping up the horses.
Windsor saw great success back in the days when the americans came over in droves. In the article you quoted, the mayor of Windsor named one spinoff benefit, and it's one that is simply not available to us: "Americans come here, visit the casino, that’s a spinoff." Not only that, OLG's own numbers point to a huge decline in this benefit.
The main direct benefit he celebrates is the employment. But we can (and have already started to) attract far higher quality jobs than this - as long as we keep building our momentum.
Is it really worth the risk?
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no clever signoff.
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