Gateway Casinos CEO Tony Santo Dead, Gaming Exec Had Planned Retirement Before Pandemic

Gateway Casinos Chief Executive Officer Tony Santo has died at the eld of 61, a statement from the Canadian gaming operator confirmed on Friday.

Santo was a gambling casino industry veteran who joined Gateway inwards 2013 as its chairwoman and CEO. He was prescribed to the publically traded company’s get on in July 2017.

No details were provided regarding Santo’s death, though the Gateway financial statement called his overtaking “untimely.”

It is with outstanding sadness that we declare the overtaking of Tony Santo,” said Gateway Casinos President Tolek Strukoff.

“His military mission was to institute Gateway as Canada’s premier amusement and gaming company. You could often encounter Tony visiting sites and staff from dayspring to dusk connecting almost their work, families, and lives. Tony was an iconic leader inwards the US and Canada and grew Gateway from a small regional gaming fellowship to one of the largest gaming companies in Canada. However, Tony would say himself he didn’t manage it – we did it together,” said Strukoff.

Planned Retirement

Santo obtained his undergrad grade at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he studied hospitality and gaming. In 2004, the UNLV William F. Harrah College of Hospitality named him the school’s “Alumnus of the Year.”

Santo held legion(p) executive director capacities inwards Las Vegas and oversaw several Strip properties, including Bally’s Grand (today Horseshoe Las Vegas), Las Vegas Hilton (today the Westgate), and Paris. Santo later oversaw Caesars Entertainment’s mid-south regional properties before seemly senior vice prexy of the full company.

Santo and then took his talents compass north to Canada where he led Gateway into comme il faut 1 of the largest gaming operators inward the country. Gateway operates 14 properties inwards Ontario, trine inward British people Columbia, and 2 inwards Alberta.

Santo proclaimed his retreat on Dec. 30, 2019, but the ensuring coronavirus assign those plans on hold. Santo stayed on the chore to aid navigate the fellowship through and through the to the highest degree challenging time.

Gateway employs just about 7,000 people and operates nearly 14,000 expansion slot machines and 350 tabularise games crosswise its portfolio.

Recent Cyberattack

Gateway Casinos earliest this year was hitting with a ransomware attempt that resulted in the companion temporarily shuttering its 14 casinos in Ontario. In mid-April, Gateway abruptly closed its Ontario gaming floors after its information engineering section determined that a cyberattack had successfully infiltrated its network.

The keep company ab initio said the incident did non ensue inward employee or customer information existence compromised. But more than a month later, the fellowship conceded that such confidential selective information was likely obtained.

Since April, Gateway has been bit by bit restoring its IT systems with extensive assistance from extraneous cybersecurity experts, and as the systems are restored, is investigating potency impacts on personal information,” a June varsity letter to employees read. “While our investigating remains ongoing, Gateway understands that the incident potential resulted inward the theft of personal entropy of sure current and prior employees.”

It was only if then that Gateway began offering liberal credit-monitoring services for its Ontario workers.

Gateway’s executives were scolded past employees and the union that represents them for non performing sooner with deferred payment monitoring and other remedial action. Cybersecurity expert Ritesh Kotak added that personal entropy sold on the dour entanglement “is out in that respect forever.”

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