ONTARIO ONE YEAR ON
Ontario iGaming Market: By the Numbers
be available to players physically located in Ontario. One exception to this requirement is that provinces may share liquidity through an inter-provincial agreement. There are no such agreements in place. As a result, existing daily fantasy sports operators who are registered in Ontario have made a commercial decision to cease this offering. At present, no registered operators offer daily fantasy sports to players in Ontario. Legal and Regulatory “Highlights” While the previous section set out the past year’s commercial highlights, this next section will examine select legal and regulatory milestones. 3 These provide insight into the priorities of the AGCO and, in the case of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke’s application, a legal challenge to the iGaming market’s framework.
85.3% of Ontarians Playing on Regulated Sites According to a March 2023 Ipsos survey, 85.3 percent of respondents who engaged in iGaming in Ontario over the past three months did so on regulated sites. 1 Prior to regulation, the only option for regulated gaming was PlayOLG.ca, operated by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (an Ontario government agency). PlayOLG.ca launched in 2013 and did not offer sports betting until 2021. It was not able to compete meaningfully against grey market operators. 12 Registered Operators at Launch, 45 last week, 44 Now On April 4, 2022, the registered Ontario iGaming market launched with 12 operators. At present, 44 operators hosting more than 70 iGaming sites are authorized to operate in Ontario. One operator, Coolbet, exited Ontario on April 3, 2023. Ontario does not have a cap on licenses, so it is expected that market forces will lead to operators choosing to leave the Ontario iGaming market. Gaming Revenue Increasing According to quarterly market reports released by iGaming Ontario, 2 total gaming revenue increased from CAD $162 million between April 4, 2022 and June 30, 2022 to CAD $457 million between October 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. Active player accounts have nearly doubled, going from 492,000 as of June 30, 2022 to 910,000 accounts by December 31, 2022. At the Ontario iGaming market’s first birthday party, iGO reported approximately CAD $35.6 billion in total wagers and approximately CAD $1.4 billion in gaming revenue. According to iGO, Ontario is now one of North America’s top-five gaming jurisdictions in terms of revenue. Fantasy Flop The AGCO has taken the position that fantasy sports are a pay-to-play sports betting product and may only be provided by registered operators. Any registered activity must only
Ending the Grey Market Transition Period
“A key objective in this first year has been to move Ontario players from playing on unregulated sites to the regulated market, so that they would benefit from high standards of operator and game integrity, fairness and player protections including responsible gambling safeguards,” Tom Mungham, Registrar and CEO of the AGCO. One of the key decisions made by regulators in “new” jurisdictions is how to address grey market operators active in a jurisdiction prior to regulation. For example, in the Netherlands, grey market operators were not able to get a licence for the first six months of the regulated Dutch market. Ontario took a different approach, effectively offering a consequence-free grey-market transition period to operators. Grey market operators in Ontario thus had an advantage entering the market, as they already had an existing base of Ontario players. Prior to October 2022, the Internet Gaming Operator Application Guide (the Guide) contained a section titled “What are the requirements related to exiting the unregulated Ontario
1 Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, “At One-Year Anniversary of Ontario Internet Gaming Market, New Study Shows over 85 per cent of Players are Playing on Regulated Sites,” April 4, 2023. https://www.agco.ca/blog/lottery-and-gaming/apr-2023/one-year-anniversary-ontario-in- ternet-gaming-market-new-study-shows 2 Available here: https://igamingontario.ca/en/quarterly-market-reports 3 We note there were additional legal and regulatory highlights, particularly with respect to changes to certain iGaming Ontario policies, however, those policies are confidential.
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IMGL MAGAZINE | APRIL 2023
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