TORONTO – The Toronto City council will meet later this month to vote on a proposed downtown casino development: one that supporters promise will bring vast wealth to the literally tens of Torontonians who own and manage casinos.
“What the people of Toronto need to understand about this project is, that it stands to make a huge amount of money,” said Gary Loveman, CEO of Caesar’s Entertainment, one of the companies set to bid on the contract. “And pretty much all of it for me, personally!”
“For others? No no no. Not for others,” Loveman added.
Since the recession of 2008, the profitability of casinos and resorts has decreased across North America, a fact that has led some to suggest that the development poses a major financial risk for the city of Toronto.
“Of course there’s a chance that the actual costs of construction will balloon, and the taxpayer will be left to foot the bill,” said Jim Murren of MGM. “But what people aren’t getting is, no matter what goes wrong, I will still be one of the richest ten thousand people in the world.”
The proposed development also promises to bring prosperity to the owners of companies contracted to build and cater to the casino.
“As it is, Torontonians are spending all of this money on things like locally crafted beer,” said Dick Magnussen, a representative for Anheuser-Busch. “But what if, instead if drinking at local bars, people drank at the casino bar? Then they would all be drinking Budweiser, and we would get all of that money instead! Local breweries would have to sell out to us in order to remain competitive!”
“Business!” Magnussen concluded.
Advocates of the casino have also trumped the fact that it will bring the city an abundance of short-term infrastructure jobs.
“Oh sure,” Loveman said. “After all, the Woodbine Racetrack isn’t going to demolish itself! We’ll also need to contract a lot of veterinarians in order to euthanise all of those horses.”
Loveman added that horse breeders put out of work by the casino were more than welcome to come work with the herd of horses that he keeps on his backyard ranch in Beverly Hills.
At press time, Mayor Ford had thrown his support behind the project.
“The Downtown casino will help me achieve my personal dream of completely gridlocking the city of Toronto.”
