Sault Ste. Marie is undertaking a four-part strategy to position the city as the province’s centre of lottery and gaming.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) has been headquartered in Sault Ste. Marie since the 1980s when the province endowed each of the North’s major cities with a government office as an antidote to the dip in resource-based industries.
But recent decisions have prompted the province to consider an adjustment to the current configuration.
The 2012 Drummond Report, which offered recommendations on how to reduce Ontario’s debt, suggested it was wasteful to have two head offices for Ontario Lottery and Gaming and one should be eliminated.
“We want the provincial government to demonstrate in action what they’ve stated in words, and that is the fact that we’re the headquarters for Ontario Lottery and Gaming,” said Tom Dodds, executive director of the city’s Economic Development Corp.
It’s a challenge, he noted, because over time, the city has seen a leakage of expertise to Toronto, including the majority of OLG executives and employees, Dodds said.
As part of the modernization of the industry, lottery and gaming throughout Ontario will soon be operated by a private service provider.
Dodds said the Sault is eager to show that private industry can benefit from centering their operations in the city.
“If this is the direction they’re going to go for modernization, then what we’re going to show is that we’re the best place to locate your lottery operations as a head office, because we have the expertise of the guys that have been doing it for years,” Dodds said.
The EDC and the city have developed a business case demonstrating the benefits to setting up there, and they’re working with provincial representatives to plead their case. A website has been set up to extol the city’s virtues to any prospective business interests.
Any loss of jobs to southern Ontario could have a critical impact on the Sault, since it would be followed by an outmigration of highly qualified individual people who have technical expertise and would have to relocate to find work if the Sault office were eliminated, Dodds said.
“The industry is not that big, but it’s high stakes for us,” he said.
A request for proposals has already been for issued for service providers interested in securing the bundle for casinos in southern Ontario. Dodds anticipates a similar RFP will be issued for the Northern Ontario bundle in the new year. He wants any private companies vying for the contract to consider setting up in the Sault.
“Our feeling is that we have people that are knowledgeable that OLG could hire and take on,” he said. The EDC is also developing a proposal to establish the Centre for Next Generation Lottery and Gaming, which would go beyond digital gaming.
Dodds points to the Sault-based company Canadian Bank Note, which has developed expertise in gaming and charitable bingos, as an example of the types of companies that the city could attract.
The company chose to locate in Sault Ste. Marie because of the intellectual know-how available.
The EDC is now partnering with the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre and Canadian Banknote to woo other companies to the Sault.
“The good news for us is that, quite apart from procurement process, what’s resulted in the modernization process is that OLG has been really keen on saying, ‘Okay, what can I do in Sault Ste. Marie with the expertise that’s here to help these other businesses grow?’”
One idea being considered is hosting a large database for companies to back up their data. Because the Sault has a secure and expansive network, it can reroute data if the main network goes down, such as during a hurricane or tornado. And the city is already home to a talent pool of people with digital expertise.
“We think that, with the way the fibre comes into Sault Ste. Marie, data centres makes a lot of sense from a fibre perspective, and it makes a lot of sense from a cold-weather perspective,” said Jason Naccarato, vice-president of development at the innovation centre.
“One of the major costs of running a data centre is running cooling equipment.”
With a mandate to operate their data centres with green power, companies like Google could find the ideal location in the Sault, where power is all generated through wind, hydro or solar power, Naccarato said.
“Because we think we can operate at a lower cost with these data centres, maybe we can attract business from southern Ontario to come to the North to host their data here,” he said.
As modernization takes place, the city is simultaneously working on a downtown redevelopment plan and could rejig the current casino’s positioning as part of that.
Dodds said the city could potentially move the casino away from its current spot and into an area that is in keeping with the overall landscape of the area that would be less intrusive and offer more entertainment value for guests.
