Canada: New Burnaby casino to open this week

It also includes a spring 2009 opening of a 200-room Delta Hotel & Conference Centre. B.C. Lottery Corp. policy calls for no further casino expansion within Metro Vancouver after the Grand Villa opens near Highway 1 and Willingdon.

A market that in the 1990s rejected the concept of a downtown Vancouver waterfront casino now embraces at least eight major casino/slot-machine facilities - including River Rock, Boulevard, Fraser Downs, Cascades, Hastings Racecourse, Edgewater, Starlight and now the Grand Villa.

"We’ll draw people from throughout Greater Vancouver because it’s near the highway and so accessible," Gateway CEO Dave Gadhia said in an interview on the casino floor, as workers prepared for the Wednesday opening. "It’s a very visible sight and you can get here in less than 10 minutes from the North Shore in non-rush-hour traffic."

The new casino is designed around an Italian villa theme, with water features, wood, natural colors and vibrant lighting that Gadhia said will bring a certain level of "elegance and sophistication."

There are several bars and restaurants in the casino, along with a 120-seat show lounge. But there are no poker rooms, considered a must by other casinos due to the game’s surging global popularity. Gadhia feels the poker market is already well served by other casinos in the region so Grand Villa will target high rollers attracted to other games of chance, especially baccarat.

The casino features a room dedicated solely to baccarat - with exclusive food and beverage service, dedicated hosts and a private cash cage for players who can bet up to us$ 45,000 a hand. The casino also has rooms for higher-stakes blackjack and slots players.

The new facility will replace a smaller casino that operated for the past nine years in a parkade across the street. Despite its smaller size and lack of amenities, that casino still generated the third-highest casino revenue in B.C. - us$ 176.7 million in 2006-07, behind only the River Rock and Boulevard casinos.

Gadhia expects the Grand Villa to generate substantially higher annual revenues. "With so many new amenities here, this will be much more appealing to a broader population base and that’s where the additional revenue will come from," he said.

He said the project’s new Delta hotel and 1,114 sqm conference centre have already generated tremendous interest from potential clients, even though it doesn’t open until next spring. Gadhia said businesses in the area - like Electronic Arts, Kodak and Yellow Pages - need a first-rate hotel and bookings have been taken well into 2010.

He said discussions are currently taking place with the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee and expects a "substantial number" of the hotel’s rooms will be set aside for use during the 2010 Olympics.