Chances Maple Ridge is not a matter of chance as far as the amount of money expected to flow into City of Maple Ridge coffers.
The company gave the city $1,056,000 in 2014, representing the city’s 10-per-cent cut of slot machine revenues.
The amount is $6,000 more than budgeted.
Council recently heard that since Chances Maple Ridge started slot machines in 2010, it has given the city $2.8 million.
Currently, there are 187 slot machines in the building in downtown Maple Ridge.
That money is helping ease the burden on homeowners because about half of the yearly total, $550,000, is plowed into the infrastructure sustainability reserve fund, which allowed a half-per-cent trim on yearly property taxes.
The gaming centre also helps out Maple Ridge community groups, such as the Ridge Meadows Hospice Society, by giving out $100,000 yearly, a deal worked out when Chances’ parent company, Great Canadian Gaming Corp., bought the Maple Ridge Bingo Association in 2008.
With half of the million dollars received yearly from Chances going to build future roads or sewer lines in Maple Ridge, the other half is divided up in several directions:
• $100,000 goes for future improvements in downtown Maple Ridge;
• $100,000 goes for improvements throughout the city;
• $75,000 goes for social planning purposes;
• $70,000 is used for general capital projects;
• $50,000 is for maintenance in the downtown;
• $50,000 is for security in the downtown;
• $40,000 is for miscellaneous ;
• $10,000 is for events held in Memorial Peace Park.
According to Great Canadian Gaming Corp., Chances employs more than 70 people and purchased more than $775,000 in goods and services in Maple Ridge in 2014. It also pays $153,000 yearly in property taxes on its new building at 227th Street and Lougheed Highway.
