Prince George gamblers flocked back to the Treasure Cove Casino in a big way.
During the 2021/22 fiscal year, our casino enjoyed a solid return generating nearly 44 million dollars in revenue.
That’s according to the annual report and service plan issued by the BC Lottery Corporation, where casinos and gaming centres province-wide tallied 1.3 billion dollars in net income over the same time span.
To make the figures more impressive, casinos and gaming centres didn’t re-open to the public until July 1st of last year after public health orders were lifted by Dr. Bonnie Henry.
BCLC spokesperson, Maria Szabo told MyPGNow.com it’s a pretty nice recovery after the organization projected slightly higher numbers before the pandemic.
“Before pre-pandemic when casinos first closed, casino revenue looked like 1.8 billion dollars so 1.3 billion in nine months is already a really strong result. I feel confident we will continue to see that.”
“Our players were really excited to come back to something that they hadn’t had any access to over the course of 16 months. I think it also says something about our response to making people feel safe that they could come into casinos and be able to enjoy despite new health and safety measures that were put in place.”
She added while casinos were closed for a period of 16 months during the peak of the pandemic, BCLC did see an explosion of its online products on Playnow.com.
“We did see record-breaking numbers in expansion for lottery and e-gaming products that were available through PlayNow.com so that is maybe a silver lining of the pandemic was to have that focus of those products and provide something new for our players.”
Szabo expects revenue numbers to be much larger in its next report with facilities returning to full operations.