RC8
Senior Member
That's not obvious at all. Where's your evidence that affluent young urban professionals are the target market for this casino? And even if they were, how is this group the most vulnerable? Yuppies are considered to be at the absolute top of the socioeconomic pyramid, being well-educated, affluent, young (thus healthy) and with no dependents.
They are not the most vulnerable group - those were 2 different statements.
Canadian stats show that low-income households spend a percentage of their total wages up to 4 times greater than high-income households, and that physical availability of casinos and slot machines play an important part on whether people gamble or not. I don't think the OLG are targeting poor people, I bet they genuinely do want to milk the wealthier demographics of downtown Toronto. I just also think they will inevitably create an army of new low-income problem gamblers like virtually every other large casino has done in urban areas when looking to increase its profit-making capabilities.
The thing is, Yuppies currently spend most of their money in Toronto supporting local businesses. If the casino is successful in making them part with a higher proportion of their wages - that's going to provincial and american corporate coffers and we'll never see that money again. Likewise, a lot of the lower-income people who would inevitably be sucked in would have otherwise be contributing to the local economy instead.
I have no problem with gambling at all, I just think that the socio-financial risks of implementing a casino as proposed here far outweigh the monetary benefits being bandied out. We will be signing a contract for an operation that won't be run in our interest and that will be completely out of our control. Toronto deserves much more than that.