Point Edward’s casino’s new owners Gateway Casinos and Entertainment last week announced plans to renovate and rebrand the Ontario-based facility as a Starlight Casino. They plan to spend million and to start by adding a new restaurant called Match Eatery and Public House, with the goal to make the casino an “entertainment destination.”
This is part of $300 million spending program planned for Gateway’s Ontario properties.
The new restaurant will be a family-friendly dining experience with a separate entrance that will allow access without traversing the gaming floor of the 17-year old casino.
Gateway Gaming owns casinos in Western Canada and Northern Ontario. Besides purchasing Point Edward’s Casino, it purchased properties in Clinton, Dresden, Hanover, London and Woodstock. The Point Edward casino will be Gateway’s first large project in the southwest part of the province.
Tony Santo, chief executive officer of Gateway, told the Sarnia Observer, “It really is special for us as a company to get started and embrace Ontario, and really take some of the things we learned in British Columbia and bring them here.” He added that the $300 million the company plans to spend will change “the model of gaming in this province.”
He added that rebranding the Point Edward property as a Starlight Casino would “modernize the building but more importantly it’s going to be more current gaming offerings that customers are used to seeing when they travel outside of Point Edward.”
Santa added, “For us, it’s really about the experience. It’s about driving customers to come here and have a good time, not just to gamble.”
Point Edward Mayor Bev Hand said she was very excited. ““The announcement today is even better than we were expecting,” she told the Observer. Point Edward was competing with other Gateway-owned locations for the new investment that was planned. She said the town was “extremely pleased to be the first.”
The renovation work at Point Edward is expected to be done by August 2018.
