J. Richard Wright

Special to The Lake Report

When we look back a couple of weeks and realize that casinos were among the first businesses to be closed by the Ontario government, it doesn’t take a stable genius to figure out why.

If there is an ideal environment for the COVID-19 virus to congregate, flourish and spread, it had to be Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.’s casinos. And, realizing these same casinos, along with other OLG endeavours, routinely deliver more than $6 billion in revenues and $2 billion in profits annually to the province, it’s obvious it was a serious move.

However, the alternative was also unthinkable since public health recognized that casinos are rabid breeding and transmission grounds for the virus. And this was long before terms such as social distancing, self-isolation or mandatory quarantine were being bandied about.

Here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, residents had good reason to applaud the OLG’s swift action in the face of new realities.

For instance, two of the largest casinos in Ontario – Fallsview Casino & Resort and Casino Niagara – with a total of 4,300 slot machines and almost 200 table games between them, sit a mere 25 kilometers from the good citizens of NOTL. And, they are also just a few hours from, arguably, close to almost half of Canada’s eligible population.

Plus, our town features many senior citizens, whom health authorities acknowledge are more likely to suffer serious consequences from COVID-19. So, forgetting about that lucky rabbit’s foot in our pocket, let’s take a hard look at some realities.

Consider that slot machines are deliberately designed for people to physically interact with them. You must push buttons, touch the screens or pull levers to play.

The prime danger, of course, is that when you touch a machine, you are also interacting with hundreds, if not thousands of people who have played the same machine in the preceding days and weeks. The buttons and screens are ideal surfaces on which the virus can reside. So by playing a slot machine, you are essentially shaking hands with former players who may have been infected with COVID-19.

Point of fact, I have often seen people spitting on their fingers and anxiously wiping their hands on the slot machine screens, or enthusiastically banging the buttons for “luck.” Some think the harder you bang, the more luck you will have – and are ejected for their efforts. The point is, those bugs would have to be super tenacious not to travel from their original host to the machines. And, then to you.

Indeed, realize that this monster loves stealth. Not only can it travel from seemingly healthy-looking people to you, researchers say the virus can live in an aerosolized form outside the body for three hours. It can also live on cardboard for 24 hours, and plastic and metal (slots) for three days. Unfortunately, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recently issued a caveat in which it announced that on a cruise ship, active coronavirus particles were found to be still living on surfaces after 17 days.

An additional concern? While medical experts recommend six feet of social distancing, the slot machines are more like eight to 12 inches apart. And, you have absolutely no say in who sits down beside you and may cough, sneeze or hack up something best left sulking in the shadows.

And, don’t think you are only playing beside local people. Consider that the Fallsview Casino website shows an aggressive busing operation with catchment areas including the GTA and much of Ontario, plus Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Prior to closing, Ontario casino operators claimed they were increasing their cleaning practices. That was nice but I'm not sure whether most slots have ever been cleaned. Ask any patron. Or slot attendant. If casinos say otherwise, I suspect they are simply articulating something that helps flowers grow.

Indeed, these are trying times, with those of limited intellectual means buying and hoarding toilet paper. (It’s a respiratory flu, folks. Sorry, but you’re concerned with the wrong end.) But thankfully many of our officials exhibited the courage to act quickly to institute safety protocols.

The good news is that being forced to stay home and out of casinos might be saving your life. And, the bad news? Heck, by closing casinos, whose one aim in life is to separate you from your money, maybe there is no bad news.

* NOTL's J. Richard Wright is a corporate and entertainment writer with more than 50 TV and radio drama scripts to his credit, more than 2,000 articles and two novels – “The Plan” and “Torngat” – both available on Amazon.