New insights from BetRivers have revealed the most popular betting and gaming habits from Ontario customers on the Rush Street-owned brand’s platforms.

New York-listed BetRivers was a Day 1 operator when Ontario’s regulated online betting and gaming market launched on April 4 and it has been tracking the behaviour of its customers since then.

Its data has found that baseball is the most popular sport to bet on in Ontario with 30 per cent of its total handle, with tennis and basketball coming in at second and third. Unsurprisingly, as the lone Canadian franchise in the most popular sport, the Toronto Blue Jays were the most popular team to bet on overall.

When looking at the most popular team by sport, while Canadian teams are in the number one spot for baseball and football, Ontario bettors went international for other sports. The top basketball team of choice was the Golden State Warriors while the Tampa Bay Lightning was the most bet-on hockey team.

In football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers came out on top, and Liverpool was the most popular soccer team.

However, in terms of most popular sporting event to bet on by wager count, none of those sports took the top spot. That went to the PGA Championship, followed by Stanley Cup playoff hockey with Game 6 and Game 7 of the Lightning-Toronto Maple Leafs series taking second and third spots respectively.

BetRivers also concluded that Ontario sports bettors are taking well to live in-play betting, touted by many operators as a key channel for the growth of the market.

Live betting has driven more handle than pre-match betting on BetRivers platforms, both in terms of player participation and average bet size. Live betting is more popular in Ontario than the U.S., accounting for 61 per cent of handle versus less than half (49 per cent) south of the border. Baseball and soccer have seen the majority of live betting handle activity.

Comparing Ontario to the U.S., when it comes to per cent of total handle, the biggest differences can be seen with the NBA and MLB. The NHL also accounts for a higher percentage of total handle in the province than in the U.S. While total handle was similar in Ontario versus the U.S. for the NHL, there was much more interest north of the border in terms of the total number of bets: NHL accounted for 20 per cent of total bets in Ontario versus only 12.5 per cent in the U.S.)

Online casino conclusions

When it comes to the online casino side of things, slots have been the most popular game types in BetRivers’ online casino, followed by blackjack, table games, and video poker.

Blackjack and Lightning Roulette are among the most popular games through the Evolution live dealer tables.

Many of the most popular games in Ontario are land-based games that players are familiar with from brick-and-mortar casinos, such as Cleopatra, Cash Machine, Capital Gains, 88 Fortunes, and China Shores.

There is also a lot of interest in game show-style games in Ontario with Crazy Time and Monopoly Live as the top performers.

Source: BetRivers