Canadian Lawyer
Pavan Jawanda has advised on the first seven First Nations casino M&A deals in BC
Jan 27b2026
Indigenous ownership in Canada’s gaming sector is shifting from passive revenue sharing to long-term equity control of major casino assets, reshaping Indigenous economic development and the way transactions and ownership models are handled in British Columbia and beyond, Pavan Jawanda says. Jawanda is a partner in the Vancouver office of McCarthy Tétrault and part of the firm’s national gaming group.
Most corporate lawyers still picture mergers and acquisitions as buying a business unit: a balance sheet, contracts, and a brand. In BC gaming, that model doesn’t show the full picture. “In gaming, you’re never just buying a business. You’re buying what I would call an entire regulated ecosystem,” Jawanda says, listing workforces, real estate, technology, hospitality assets, brand rights, customer loyalty programs, and various other types of assets that all must move together when ownership changes hands. Timelines also flip. He says deals are often “built backwards from regulatory approvals,” because clearances from the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, or the equivalent regulators in other provinces and territories, are an important part of the process.
McCarthy Tétrault has advised on the first seven First Nations casino mergers and acquisitions deals in BC, as Indigenous communities move from revenue-sharing cheques to full equity stakes and operational control of major casino assets. Snuneymuxw First Nation’s Petroglyph Development Group, for example, has gone from acquiring Elements Casino Victoria and Casino Nanaimo to a pending deal for River Rock Casino Resort and Chances Casino Maple Ridge, a trajectory that would make it one of the largest casino operators by revenue in the province and the largest Canadian Indigenous-owned gaming operator in the country. Similar transactions by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and by a group from the Ts’elxwéyeqw Tribe are further shifting a meaningful share of BC’s gaming economy into Indigenous hands.
Jawanda insists this is not a marginal trend. “What we’ve seen in BC over the last year and a half to two years isn’t incremental,” he says. “This is foundational, this is structural, …, it is seismic.” A significant number of the province’s major casino assets are in the process of being transferred into First Nations ownership. He says the deals are “coordinated, repeatable ownership,” not one-off projects, building platforms intended to persist for generations.
