Starlight Casino history
Starlight Casino at 350 Gifford Street opened December 10, 2007, replacing the Royal City Star riverboat moored at New Westminster Quay since 1999. Gateway's New Westminster operations began in April 1992 at the Royal Towers hotel. What follows covers the move from that top-floor room to a Queensborough destination, the 2002–2003 provincial consolidation policy, and subsequent property changes. Arrival and current gaming details appear on the Locations page and the Games and dining page. The present floor reflects a 2003-era provincial shift toward fewer, larger entertainment-focused casinos.
History at a glance
Land-based Starlight opened December 10, 2007 at 350 Gifford Street, replacing the Royal City Star riverboat after eight years at the quay. Gateway's New Westminster operations date to 1992 and the Royal Towers hotel. The riverboat era (1999–2007) moored the ex–Queen of New Orleans paddlewheel on the Fraser. BCLC conducts provincial gaming. Gateway Casinos & Entertainment runs the property under that model. New Westminster has been a host municipality since the destination licence began in 1999. House line: HERE YOU SHINE!
Gateway in British Columbia — how Starlight fits the portfolio
Gateway entered British Columbia in April 1992 with two small Greater Vancouver acquisitions — Mandarin Centre in Vancouver's Chinatown and a top-floor room at Royal Towers in New Westminster. After Lake City Casinos (2002), Gateway opened purpose-built destinations: Cascades Casino Langley (2005), Starlight New Westminster (2007), and Grand Villa Casino Burnaby (2008) as paired Metro Vancouver flagships. Proprietary brands — Starlight, Cascades, Grand Villa, MATCH — identify property type at each site.
Starlight New Westminster is Gateway's Metro Vancouver anchor on industrial Queensborough land, not a mall-embedded hall. The Starlight name also brands redeveloped Gateway sites in Edmonton and Point Edward, Ontario. New Westminster was purpose-built as Starlight from day one. Within BC, Starlight differs from Grand Villa Burnaby (hotel-convention flagship with on-site lodging), Cascades resort properties in Langley and Delta (Fraser Valley scale), and Chances community centres (smaller local halls).
Before Starlight — Royal Towers and the Royal City Star
Gateway has run gaming in New Westminster since April 1992, but the city has seen three very different casinos under the same operator — none of them the building on Gifford Street today.
The first was a 4,000-square-foot room on the top floor of the Royal Towers hotel downtown — the scale of early-1990s BC community gaming. In 1996 Gateway expanded within the same hotel without leaving Columbia Street. By the late 1990s provincial policy was shifting toward larger destination licences, and a hotel attic could not carry that weight.
In October 1999 gaming moved to the waterfront. The Royal City Star was a 75-metre Mississippi paddlewheel — built in Louisiana in 1993 as the Queen of New Orleans, towed on the heavy-lift Swan, converted at Royal Roads near Victoria, and moored at New Westminster Quay. Period press called it British Columbia's first destination casino and, at the time, Canada's only operating casino riverboat. Opening day was not a ribbon-cutting in a lobby: the ship cast off on the Fraser with more than 1,000 guests before settling into quay-side play. That licence tied New Westminster to the operation as host city — a relationship that survived when the address changed.
Eight years later the boat ran out of room. Dining, parking, and floor growth needed land, not hull maintenance. On December 9, 2007, the Royal City Star closed. On December 10, Starlight opened at 350 Gifford Street — gaming shifted overnight. The paddlewheel stayed on the Fraser long after the tables moved ashore, a familiar silhouette on the waterfront until it was towed away from New Westminster.
Why Queensborough and Gifford Street — historical site context
Queensborough sits on Lulu Island, annexed by New Westminster in the late 1800s and linked to the mainland by rail (1891) and the Queensborough Bridge (1960). For most of the twentieth century the Fraser front was industrial — lumber, canneries, shipyards along Ewen Avenue — with residential pockets cut off from downtown by water and bridge traffic.
By the 2000s, provincial policy favoured relocating destination casinos to larger highway-accessible sites. Queensborough's industrial zoning near Highway 91A and the Queensborough Connector could host a roughly 100,000-square-foot complex with structured parking — space the quay mooring lacked for dining, expansion, and vessel maintenance. A companion hotel appeared in some municipal filings but was not built with the opened facility.
BCLC, regulation, and New Westminster as host
British Columbia commercial gaming runs through a Crown corporation model. BCLC conducts and manages all provincial gaming and contracts registered service providers for day-to-day operations. Gateway Casinos & Entertainment holds that role at Starlight — floor operations, staffing, and property investment under BCLC agreement. Oversight flows through the Gaming Control Act and regulators including BCLC and IGCO.
The City of New Westminster receives host financial assistance — typically 10% of net gaming income under provincial HFAA patterns. BCLC community reporting ties hosting since 1999 to the destination licence that began with the Royal City Star. Land-based Starlight continues that relationship. The 2002–2003 consolidation era pushed toward fewer, larger, entertainment-focused casinos with slots — away from the scattered small halls that period press called "sawdust joints." Starlight opened under that policy.
The Starlight brand and HERE YOU SHINE
Starlight is Gateway's proprietary casino brand. HERE YOU SHINE! is the house line at New Westminster. The property carried the Starlight name from its December 2007 opening. Edmonton and Point Edward, Ontario received the brand on redeveloped sites.
Opening plan and the floor today
Opening press targeted a ~100,000-square-foot destination with roughly 600 slots, 54 live tables, and 14 poker tables on the main floor, plus underground parking and dining in the first-phase plan. A companion hotel on the Queensborough site appeared in municipal filings but was never built — unlike integrated resorts such as River Rock in Richmond.
The 2007 shell remains. The mix inside it changed. Slots grew from opening-era reporting of ~600–800 machines to 935 today; live tables stayed at 54. Poker left the open floor — 14 tables in the opening plan became a seven-table dedicated room in October 2023. MATCH, additional restaurants, VIP space, and Solar Arena were layered into the original building, not a new structure. Current game and dining detail is on the Games and dining page.
Timeline and the property today
New Westminster's destination-casino licence dates to the Royal City Star (1999); land-based Starlight continues that municipal hosting relationship at 350 Gifford Street. Practical arrival is on the Locations page.