The View - 205

1512 – General Members Meeting

Please be advised that the next General Members Meeting will occur as noted below. Please let us know if you will be attending the meeting.

    Date:                     18^th November 2019
    Time:                    10:00am to 12:30pm
    Where:                  Hilton Hotel (Meadowvale)
    Address:               6750 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario  L5N 2L3
    Refreshments:     Light snacks & coffee

Should you have any questions, please contact Peter McMahon direct.

1513 – Joint OCGA-CGAO Charitable Gaming Conference

Please be advised our annual Joint Conference will be held in Mississauga and is designed, as well as focused, on Charitable Gaming. If you are interested in attending this important conference, please contact our Conference Co-ordinator as indicated below.

    Date:                           18^th & 19^th November 2019
    Time:                           4:00pm 18^th November 2019
    Where:                        Hilton Hotel (Meadowvale)
    Address:                     6750 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario  L5N 2L3 
    Co-Ordinator:             Ms. Patricia Petrolo - ppetrolo@charitablegaming.com
    Who Should Attend:  Commercial Operators, Charity Members, Municipal Staff, Regulators, Crown Corporation (Gaming) and Vendors/Suppliers

The key sponsor of this conference is the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and we wish to acknowledge and thank them for their support.

1514 – G2E (Las Vegas) Conference

The G2E Gaming Conference in Las Vegas will be taking place in October. This falls on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend [14^th October 2019]. Our Chair, Mr. Tony Rosa,will be leading the CGAO delegation and we will undertake to walk the Vendors Floor on Tuesday, 15^th October 2019, from noon. If you are interested in joining our delegation for the walk through, we will meet outside the main Vendors Floor doors at 11:45am.

    Dates:             14^th October to 17^th October 2019
    Where:            Las Vegas Sands Conference Centre
    Conference:   G2E

1515 – PlaySmart (RG)

After a little delay we held our quarterly PlaySmart review meeting in downtown Toronto at the Responsible Gambling Council offices. This year has turned out to be the year of transition on numerous fronts for all organizations but the tri-party engagement by CGAO, RG-C and OLG remains strong and we look to continuing this as we go forward.

Headlines

• New Event Introduced - Get Your Game On – the focus on how games & gambling work. Undertook 64 sessions, and engaged 3,535 consumers.
• Three Initiatives - Tap-N-Play, Play-Breaks, Hooked on Habits – these will run through until the end of the fiscal.
• New Redesigned - All-in-one Centres are being brought on-line within cGaming. This will likely start with the six (6) conversion Centres before being rolled out to Centres around the province.
• Human Resources - Major changes occurred in people in both the OLG and RG-C operational teams.

Progress continues to be made in Centres. We need to stay attuned to the issues and engagement of RG in our businesses and among our team members. It is critical we retain the ‘Public Licence’ we hold and continue to deliver benefits back to our communities.

1516 – Revitalization of Charitable Gaming

Over the course of the spring and summer we undertook to transition the thirty [30] CGAO Member Centres over to the Amended Operator Contract[s]. This was completed on a regional basis and at a very fast pace to ensure there was limited in-balances between markets.

We feel it is important to acknowledge the co-operation and support of our Charities, Municipalities, our Regulator (AGCO) and the Crown Corporation (OLG). It was a combined effort and there were a lot of individuals who worked extremely hard to ensure we met our deadlines. Therefore, we thank them for their contributions publicly.

We now switch our attention to the six [6] conversion Centres who are at different stages of that process and it will take to late 2020 to see them all fully convert. It is a hard, taxing and consuming process that requires tremendous investment from the Commercial Operator. It is projected that the two [2] Centres in Toronto will go first with one scheduled to open in the first or second week of October and the other Centre later in the year.

We are seeing some encouraging signs of charity performance, both in terms of engagement and revenue contributions. This is a positive development and was a key indicator when we [CGAO & OCGA] proposed the initiative. The participation and active engagement of the Charity representatives in the Centres was and remains a critical point and we must collectively enhance and seek opportunities to promote it.

1517 – AGCO Stakeholder Summit

The AGCO will be hosting the second Stakeholder Summit later this year in Toronto. This is the second time our regulator has hosted a ‘Stakeholder Forum’ of this nature and if it is like the first, it is extremely educational, informative and engaging.

The CGAO has committed to attend this event.