Chances: Know When To Hold Them, Know When To Fold Them

By Ben Meisner

The saying is, “know when to hold them, know when to fold them”. The Chances Gaming Centre, owned by John Major is a classic example.

If you or I had $14 million in a building that wasn’t making the mortgage payments, there would be a propensity to try and bail out, cut your losses. The old saying again applies, the first loss is always the best loss and Major sees it that way.

What happened to "Chances"?

A couple of things.

Build it and they will come, simply didn’t happen. Bingo players didn’t like the new set up, perhaps in part because the facility was too big, perhaps because it is electronic and the fun is in using the dabber. Then there is the issue of non smoking, the place was designed to have a special section for smokers that also didn’t fly.

If you could be the fly on the wall, I’d bet the City put a lot of pressure on Major to build downtown, and to add on a few condos as a means of trying to improve on the area. Of course that improvement hasn’t got a hope in hell in succeeding until the City tackles the root cause of the problem and they haven’t.

It is a great building with a great entrance and it won’t sit empty for long, given as I guess the interest on $14 mill is about seventy grand a month. You either swallow the pill now or later and the fact that Major moved to close the facility so fast suggests that he is ready to swallow right now.

While the matter of the left hand turn into the Casino at 97 and 16  isn’t really part of this whole scenario , it should be noted that when the Casino purchased the property they paid, $7 mill under the condition that a left hand turn would be built as part of the deal with the province who owned the property.

If you look across the street at the Golf property going for $15 million, Major didn’t exactly steal his corner.

The people further along the highway are trying to get the Province to come up with the money to build a left hand turn into their places of business. They built there with the understanding that there would not be a left at the entrance and trying to get the taxpayer to come clean after the fact is going to be a hard sell. If they want a left hand turn and the cost is around a million dollars, go to the Province, offer to pay for the turn (just as was done down the street at the Casino) and away you go.

When you either buy or build on cheap land because it has limited access you shouldn’t be coming along later asking the taxpayer to make that property more attractive, unless of course you are ready to put your money where your mouth is.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.    

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