An interest meeting took place in Vancouver this morning whereby the development company Paragon Ltd, put forward to the committee it’s drawings for a new land based casino in the heart  of BC alongside  Place Stadium.

At the press briefing, which took place to highlight and communicate the concept, was a large group of people opposed to the development which was really just a repetition of what took place the last time the company put forward similar plans.

The head of Paragon explained that they managed to gather some key learnings from objections that were put forward which has stood them in a better position when conceptualizing the new building.

It was apparent that the majority of objects were around the fact that residents didn’t want another Vegas themed style building in their neighbourhood.

With this is mind Paragon has put something that doesn’t even resemble a casino but appears more like another office block. The $535 million casino building of close to 700,000 square foot  is set to comprise of 2 hotels, conference facilities, retail shops, and will host Edgewater casino which has hundreds of slot machines and gaming tables

The proposed plan does still require approval from Vancouver city before any of the changes can go ahead.

The head of the group against casino, Sandy Garossino explained that she wanted to see what the future plans entailed.

The building dubbed as a ‘world class urban resort’ will need this approval to go ahead if their plans to open in 2016 will be met.

There seems to be large sum of cash that have not been reported by the B.C. Lottery Corporation  and they are responsible for reporting such events to Canada’s money laundering watchdog.

Furthermore,  this has apparently been something has is not new but has been ongoing for the past 3 years with the BCLC not complying with the rules as stipulated by the Finacnical Transaction and reports Analysis centre of Canada.

There does appear to be some discrepancy over a rule which overns how these numerous transactions were submitted by an individual  during a 24 hour time frames, these amounts totalled $10 000.

This is apparently not the only indecent that has occurred between British Columbia Lottery Commission when another fine was issued totalling $700,000 way back in 2011. The outcome of this has yet to be determined and it is likely to go on for at least a few more years.

Clarity was requested about 24 months previously on how exactly BCLC should be reporting back  on these multiple large transaction as they believe it is necessary that they are reported and reported regularly. They said so far that Fintrac has not made it clear what the exact rules is.

Further investigation was conducted when a call was made to Fintrac in Ottawa but there was no response.

A lway does exist however that amount larger than $10,000 must be reported to Fintrac and labelled “Large Cash Transaction Report.”. If the workers believe that money laundery may be involved then they are to report the incident as a “SuspiciousTransaction Report.

Most of the reporting that has taken place was done correctly although a single big amount of cash was filled late , believed to be a Mission Casino. BCLC  explained that this happened due to the fact that the client didn’t have the required Identification to take claim to this jackpot amount. It was later reported that this amount was paid when the client did in fact present he correct identification about five days later.

“BCLC recognizes that this has been a repeat finding over the past three years; however, BCLC continues to wait for clarification of the “24 Hour Rule” in the Department of Finance Consultation Paper dated December 2011 entitled “Strengthening Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime,” it said. “To date the method by which BCLC calculates (large cash transaction reports) has not been questioned by Fintrac.”