SOurcE: BcLc 2015/16 – 2017/18 SErVIcE PLAn
SEPtEMBEr 2015 BCBusiness 25
If you think about somebody
who wants to launder money,
there's probably a lot better
places than a casino, where
you come in and you're under a
camera. If you're going to make
transactions of $10,000 or more
over a 24-hour period, then
we want to know not only who
you are but what your source of
income is. And that's not a like-
to-have; we must have it, other-
wise we're not going to accept
your money. We've also got a
relationship with law enforce-
ment agencies where we've said,
"We want to know your list of
bad guys." And we've proac-
tively banned those people.
Who are the high rollers then?
It's actually very legitimate
business people who are very,
very wealthy, who are coming
to the Lower Mainland, and this
is their form of entertainment.
[Las Vegas casino magnate]
Steve Wynn just won the right
to open a casino just outside of
Boston, and during the tribunal
that determined whether or not
he was going to be selected he
was asked, "Why Boston?" He
said, "There's only two places
in North America that I would
open another casino outside of
Las Vegas: Greater Boston and
Greater Vancouver." And for
the same reason: very wealthy
Asians are sending their kids to
school in those markets—and
then they're coming to visit.
He said, "I want to give them a
place to entertain themselves."
Is there a concern that as the
Chinese economy slows, you
lose a chunk of that money?
Yes. We are riding this wave
right now on our high-limit
table business, and we're going
to continue to take care of that,
but the importance of a diversi-
fied business does not go unno-
ticed here. So we need to make
sure that we're working on our
mainstream casino customers as
well as our lottery business. One
of the important things we're
looking at now is, How do we
leverage the power of our digital
space and the PlayNow platform
to do that? How do we use that
digital asset to make going to a
casino that much more enjoy-
able? Or how do we make buying
the lottery ticket in a conve-
nience store that much better?
You served for over a year as
"interim
CEO" until your posi-
tion was made permanent in
April. What did that feel like?
The world's longest interview!
But really, one of the things I
learned playing sports is that you
have to have self-confidence or
you're done. I remained focused
on making sure that I was doing
the role I was being asked to do.
And if I did it well, then I would
make it a really easy decision for
our board of directors. Luckily
that's the way it worked out.
•
neT win per
capiTa*
*nEt WIn IS cALcuLAtED
FOr LOttErY AnD BInGO
GAMES BY DEDuctInG
PrIzES FrOM GrOSS
SALES. thE PEr cAPItA
FIGurE DIVIDES thIS BY
thE POPuLAtIOn BASE.
SOurcE: BcLc
$458
$404
$363
$332
BClC Canada loto-Québec
(lQ)
ontario
lottery
and
Gaming
Corporation
(olG)
