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Canadian City Wins with Casinos

NIAGARA FALLS, Canada – As reported by the Buffalo Business First: "The true impact of the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort isn't in its bricks and mortar, no matter how glitzy they happen to be.

"…'Ten years ago, Niagara Falls was one of the have-nots,' admitted recently elected Mayor Ted Salci. 'We had the second highest unemployment rate in the country and our image was taking a bad beating.'

"A grassroots drive to land casino gaming in the city, a movement that became a political mantra, began an almost unprecedented era of growth in the Niagara region's hospitality industry.

"At the center of that growth sits the $1 billion (Canadian) Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort, an entertainment-gaming-retail-hotel complex that, according to its first visitors, lives up to its advance billing -- and then some.

"The new casino is the younger sibling to Casino Niagara, the city's first gaming venue that, when it opened in late 1996, led the way for Niagara Falls' economic development resurgence.

"…When Niagara Falls decided to pursue casino gaming as a means to prop up its then-ailing hospitality industry, local leaders only dreamed of a venue like the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort.

"The thought of thousands wandering through a casino on a warm, early summer afternoon -- virtually all clad in designer gowns and James Bond-like tuxedos -- was a pipe dream.

"…But all that changed when the Ontario government, through its Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., awarded Niagara Falls a casino site eight years ago.

"…Niagara Falls has seen more than 30 major tourism and hospitality-related projects sprout up in the past decade that collectively have created more than $2 billion in private sector investments…"

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