When the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) announced its intent to build a new casino gambling facility in downtown Toronto, a number of Las Vegas casino companies, including MGM expressed their interests. Earlier this month, MGM executives laid out the company’s plans to build a 3-million square foot hotel-casino complex along Toronto’s waterfront. However, many are not too keen on MGM’s offer, since the plan entails building additional infrastructures and re-routing of transport to avoid congesting traffic in the nearby downtown Toronto areas.

To date, further developments indicate that MGM’s proposed new casino venue might not even see the light of day in Toronto. The deal between OLG and Toronto ignited a controversy when other Ontario mayors learned last week that Toronto is bound to receive a hosting fee of $50 million to $100 million annually. This is in stark contrast to the hosting fees, which OLG awarded to other Ontario municipalities that play host to five smaller-sized casinos in the province. Niagara Falls, for one, receives $3 million annually for hosting two casinos, while Ottawa expects to receive $4 million from a proposed casino project that has yet to commence.

Last Wednesday, Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne stepped in to put an end to the squabble, by instructing the CEO of OLG to rewrite the formula in calculating the hosting fees. That way, all hosting fees for new casinos will have equal and fair treatment. The proposed basis for calculating fees is the annual revenue that a new casino expects to generate.

In light of this development, some Toronto councilors see OLG’s plan for a downtown casino as no longer feasible if the city will not receive the $100 million a year deal. This is regardless of whoever builds the new casino in downtown Toronto.