The Township of Centre Wellington received $578,380 on Tuesday for hosting OLG slots at Grand River Raceway in Elora.
The payment was for the municipality’s first-quarter share of slots revenue, which runs from April to June.
To date, Centre Wellington has received more than $12.3-million in non-tax gaming revenue. Payments are made on a quarterly basis according to the government fiscal year, which runs April to March. OLG Slots at Grand River opened on Dec. 4. Since opening, the facility has attracted more than 3.9 million visitors.
The township has been using the slots cash strictly for infrastructure projects.
While other municipalities have been forced to borrow cash to contribute their one-third of the costs for roads and bridges projects through federal and provincial infrastructure grand programs, the township has had cash available to pay for those costs, causing Treasurer Wes Snarr to tell council recently that Centre Wellington is the envy of most municipalities in Ontario.
In total, OLG issued more than $18.3-million in first-quarter non-tax gaming revenue payments to 23 municipalities that host OLG casinos and OLG slots-at-racetrack facilities. To date, OLG has distributed $705.9-million to those host municipalities.
Each municipality hosting slots receives five per cent of the gaming facility’s gross slot machine revenue from the first 450 slot machines, and two per cent from any additional machines over that number.
Tracks and their horse people also share the revenue generated by the slots program, with 20 per cent of gross slot machine revenue split evenly between the two groups. Since the launch of the program in 1998, more than $3.16-billion has been shared between racetrack owners and their horse people.
And, in 2010-11, the province will allocate $120-million in gaming revenue to support charities through the Ontario Trillium Foundation .
As well, every year the provincial government allocates two per cent of gross revenue at casinos and slots facilities to the province’s problem gambling program for research, treatment and prevention programs.
The amount for fiscal 2010-11 is estimated at $39-million.
