The Magic Palace electronic gaming facility officially opened its doors last Friday afternoon. Magic Palace is the second of two facilities that are a part of a three-year pilot project to see EGDs, or electronic gaming devices, installed in Kahnawake. The other facility is Playground.
Under the terms of the agreement between the facilities and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, each facility is to contribute $1 million each a year for three years back to the community. Through the course of this pilot project the two facilities are expected to contribute a total of $6 million in royalties back to the community.
The first floor of Playground’s EGD facility opened in mid-December.
Magic Palace, formerly known as Poker Palace, is located on Route 132, held a soft opening last Friday afternoon with 371 EDG and another 66 machines are expected to arrive soon. On opening night a pair of Kahnawa’kehró:non had hit jackpots of $5,000 and $7,000.
“The newly redesigned interior, paired with the first class Mirela’s Restaurant, will provide clients with a unique and pleasant Electronic Gaming Device experience,” Magic Palace said in a statement.
Magic Palace, which started out as Snake’s Poker Club, currently does not offer any poker tables, but said that it is in the process of revamping that and will be offering poker again in the near future.
“It took a lot of work from a lot of people to get us where we are today,” Antuen Mulhallah, Magic Palace General Manager, said.
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Magic Palace Management Consultant Louie John Diabo said that aside from the $1 million a year royalty to the community, Magic Palace is committed to helping contribute to the local economy. Currently, Magic Palace employs 100 people with 20 workers from Kahnawake, Diabo said, with plans of increasing that number.
“We want royalties in the neighbourhood of $1 million going to the community, so that’s direct economic impact going back to the community of Kahnawake,” Diabo said. “Those are the types of things we want to do, along with the employment and just creating a healthy Kahnawake economy.”
Diabo said that, much like Playground, Magic Palace wants to work with Tewatohnhi’saktha on employment training programs to help train Kahnawa’kehró:non to work in the facility.
“Given the situation of the labour market in Kahnawake right now that’s significant because people are going to say ‘hey, I don’t have to cross the bridge, I have the opportunity to work in my own community,’ that’s something the owners are taking pride in,” Diabo said.
Discussions on Electronic Gaming Devices first began in 2017. When Playground’s facility opened in December, Kahnawake Gaming Commission Chairman Mark Jocks explained that the work began in April 2017.
“The KGC was given direction in April of 2017 to start the research and exploratory work to see what would be required to regulate these devices,” Jocks said. “Several drafts were created and modified over the course of 2017 and early 2018 in the event that the MCK approved such an activity.”
With a Mohawk Council Executive Directive on March 27, 2018, the MCK approved EDGs and the following day, the KGC tabled and passed its Regulations Concerning Electronic Gaming Devices.