British Columbia’s finance minister couldn’t – or wouldn’t – explain why the number of Gaming Control Act violations at licensed gambling operators skyrocketed 735% in a single year.
On May 17, the BC Ministry of Finance released the 2014-15 annual report of the Gaming Policy Enforcement Branch (GPEB), which cracks the whip on the province’s licensed gaming operators, including casinos, lotteries, bingo halls, racetracks and the province’s online gambling site PlayNow.com).
The report – which has yet to be posted to the GPEB’s website but was independently published by journalist Bob Mackin – shows 3,215 violations of the Gaming Control Act (GCA) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015, up from just 385 in the 2013-14 report.
The same day that the report was released, New Democratic Party finance critic David Eby attended a budget estimates hearing, at which he quizzed finance minister Mike de Jong (pictured) as to what was behind the year-on-year surge in GCA violations.
