SALEM — Canadian developers who want to build a casino outside Portland have blanketed the airwaves and mailboxes with promises of $100 million for schools and public services from a project they’ve dubbed “The Grange."
That’s a lot of money. But if the two companies asking voters to authorize Oregon’s first nontribal casino give the state the same deal they gave governments elsewhere, it could be quite a bit more.
Opponents say the developers have a mixed record of results, claiming a handful of their projects have fallen apart or failed to generate anticipated revenue. One company was fined by regulators in Illinois.
“It comes down to a matter of can we trust them, and they just simply don’t have a trustworthy track record," said Cynara Lilly, a spokeswoman for the campaign opposing Measures 82 and 83, which would allow the privately owned casino in Wood Village.
The opposition campaign is funded primarily by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, which runs Spirit Mountain Casino, near Portland.
The new Oregon casino would be owned by PDX Entertainment, a corporation with about 19 shareholders created in March and based in Lake Oswego. Clairvest Group Inc. and Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, publicly traded Canadian companies, together own a majority stake in PDX Entertainment.
The investors point to letters of support from leaders in other communities where they run casinos.
If voters sign off, the casino would be required to give 25 percent of its winnings to the state lottery fund. The state’s share is far more than the 6 percent Spirit Mountain Casino pays toward nontribal community services. But it’s short of what Clairvest and Great Canadian pay elsewhere.
British Columbia gets 75 percent of the revenue from slot machines and 60 percent from table games at Great Canadian casinos. New Brunswick in eastern Canada gets 50 percent from a Clairvest casino. Illinois got 45 percent last year, and Indiana gets 35 percent.
Company executives point out that the regulatory and market environments are different in every state or province. In British Columbia, Parr said, the government owns and maintains the slot machines. In New Brunswick, Clairvest has a monopoly for 20 years and the government helps market the casino.
“What we wanted to do is be able to give something simple, clean, easy for the government of Oregon to understand," Parr said. “They don’t have to support us in any way shape or form and we will dedicate 25 percent off the top."