Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo announced it is buying two more casinos – including River Rock Casino Resort – and will become the largest Indigenous-led casino operator in British Columbia by revenue.<\/p>\n
Chief Mike Wyse and the First Nation’s economic development corporation, Petroglyph Development Group, announced Thursday, Oct. 30, definitive agreements to purchase River Rock as well as Chances Maple Ridge from Great Canadian Entertainment. Earlier this year, Snuneymuxw purchased Casino Nanaimo and Elements Casino Victoria.<\/p>\n
“We took our time to acquire our first casinos and have been evaluating their performance ever since. Our steady and sustainable approach has gained the confidence of our province’s gaming commission as we’ve grown and operated our casinos,” Wyse said during the announcement.<\/p>\n
He said revenue will be re-invested into the nation for purposes such as housing, education, distribution to members including support for elders, sponsorships and further business investment.<\/p>\n
“All the decisions that are being made are looking at the future of our people and the strength and the growth that is happening to get to where Snuneymuxw was once before contact – strong and powerful.”<\/p>\n
The development corporation will continue conversations around a nation-to-nation partnership with Musqueam First Nation where River Rock Casino Resort is located for shared economic development opportunities, as well as Katzie First Nation where Chances Maple Ridge is located, according to the chief.<\/p>\n
The purchases are still subject to regulatory approval, with no timeline on when that will be completed.<\/p>\n
Terrance Doyle, Great Canadian Entertainment president and chief development officer, told media that the company has been in discussion with Snuneymuxw for approximately two years.<\/p>\n
“Great Canadian was purchased by a company called Apollo Global Management, they’re a large private equity fund, they’ve owned the company for about five years now. They buy these companies specifically to own them for a certain period of time and then sell them, they never intended to be long-term owners,” Doyle said. “So when the decision was made from Apollo that they would invest in these for some period of time, my first thought would be how I could find long-term owners. I don’t think casinos are an industry that should be bought and sold every few years.”<\/p>\n
He said that because the development group is already a registered gaming operator, he expects the regulatory framework to be completed more quickly this time, but it will still take a number of months.<\/p>\n
“One of the real advantages of these transactions is Snuneymuxw is going to own these properties forever, for the long term,” Doyle said. “With that, what that does is it offers up the operations to be able to operate with looking not just days, weeks, months ahead but years and decades ahead. So you won’t see a lot of changes from a day-to-day point-of-view but for the long-term I think the properties will be managed a lot better under Snuneymuxw ownership.”<\/p>\n
The purchase cost of the casinos or its revenue have not been made public. River Rock has been the largest casino resort in Western Canada for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Snuneymuxw\u2019s economic development group announces agreement to buy Richmond casino as well as a Maple Ridge casino<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":159147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-regional-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n