Revenues at Cascades Casino in Kamloops took a hit last year but that didn’t affect the bottom line much for the city.

A report from the BC Lottery Corporation released last week shows Cascades lost $11 million in its past fiscal year, where unionized employees were on strike for almost five months.

But the city’s finance director Kathy Humphrey says the city still received more than $2.8 million from casino tax revenue last year, which was only $135,000 less than 2017. She says increased revenues at Chances Casino made up most of the difference.

“Kamloops is lucky in that sense in that people who are wanting to spend money in the casino had another alternative. Other communities that only have one facility would have completely have lost that revenue. So, we were fortunate that we did have that offset,” Humphrey says.

“We also are paid based on a quarter by quarter basis. So as the casino was on strike last year we saw a decline in the revenues from the one casino but we saw an increase in the revenues from the other casino. So, that a little bit of a decline was already reflected in the city’s book.”

Kamloops is entitled to up to 10 per cent of revenues at local casinos.