ONTARIO ONE YEAR ON
HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY TO ONTARIO’S iGAMING MARKET! ONE YEAR AFTER CANADA’S MOST POPULOUS PROVINCE LEGALIZED ONLINE GAMING JACK TADMAN LOOKS AT THE LEGAL HIGHLIGHTS AND NOTABLE DEVELOPMENTS
Introduction On April 4, 2023, Ontario’s regulated internet gaming (iGaming) market turned one. To celebrate, the Canadian Gaming Association threw a birthday party. A one-year-old, much like the Ontario iGaming market, is an amorphous blob of unfulfilled potential. And much like a birthday party for a one-year-old, the party is really about the parents and the community around the parents that helped the child survive and grow for its first year, like friends, family, lobbyists, and multi-national gaming organizations.
parent environment, Ontario is unique in that it has two parents, namely the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the regulator, and iGaming Ontario (iGO), the government organization responsible for “conducting and managing” gaming in Ontario (more on that later). There have been numerous articles written about Ontario’s successes and areas for improvement. Those articles generally focus on Ontario “by the numbers” and will be summarized in the section below. This article is written primarily for those with an interest in the legal and regulatory gaming space, and therefore looks at some of the notable developments over the past year in Ontario from a legal and regulatory perspective.
Whereas most gaming jurisdictions grow up in a single-
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IMGL MAGAZINE | APRIL 2023
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