As casinos remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Kamloops is unclear on gaming funds it could receive this year.
The city gets 10 per cent of net revenues from Cascades and Chances casinos, which have been closed since March 17 of last year.
Finance director Kathy Humphrey says the city thinks those casinos could reopen, in some form, by the fall.
“What that looks like, and how much money comes to us, we don’t know,” Humphrey tells NL News.
“In terms of gaming, we haven’t heard anything specifically from the province. We do know that, like everybody, I believe the casino companies as well as (the BC Lottery Corporation) are doing everything they possibly can to make a COVID-safe environment for the casinos to reopen. But at this point, we haven’t heard specifically when that is going to happen.”
Humphrey says the city still has $550,000 from gaming funds received in 2020, from before casinos were shut down, but says the city might wait until the 2022 fiscal year to spend those dollars.
She says the city usually gets about $2.5 million in gaming grants, in a normal year.
Kamloops city council lobbied unsuccessfully last year to Attorney General Dave Eby to have casino host municipalities receive a cut of online gambling revenues for as long as casinos are closed because of the pandemic.