Nearly three years after Canada legalised single-event sports betting, Ontario’s is still the only regulated, open commercial sports betting market in the country. That’s unlikely to be the case for too much longer.

It’s old news by this point that Alberta intends to launch its own online gaming and wagering market in the vein of Ontario in the near future. Could we see similar action start to gather pace in other provinces?

A variety of experts discussed that notion at the Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, as well as the size of the opportunity in Alberta. The consensus was that the influence of Wild Rose Country opening its doors could extend far beyond the province itself.

A recent Citizens JMP Securities projection suggested that Alberta’s forthcoming iGaming market could generate more than $950 million a year in revenue by the third year. That kind of return would rank it as the eighth-largest commercial gambling market in North America. While those expectations are disputed, having not one but two of Canada’s four most populous provinces open for business may change the outlook significantly.

“When you’ve got one province doing something, that is something that can be easily ignored,” said Patrick Harris of Rubicon Strategy. “When you’ve got another significant province doing it too, that tends to become a pattern.”

“With Ontario, we have precedent. With Alberta, we have pattern.”

Jared Beber, BET99

Conduct and manage issue critical?

In his address to attendees at CGS, Alberta minister Dale Nally confirmed that another particular way the province will emulate Ontario is by establishing a separate entity to conduct and manage gaming.

Nally stressed that the message he received “loud and clear” was the commercial operators would not want to come to Alberta if the right to conduct and manage was held by Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC). That message was echoed as reported speech by multiple individuals at the summit. The Alberta legislature cleared the legal runway to allow that by passing Bill 16, which recognised that the provincial government has the authority to conduct and manage gaming in the province separately and distinctly from AGLC. 

In Ontario in May, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed a challenge filed by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke and upheld the right of iGaming Ontario (iGO) to conduct and manage iGaming in the province. The court also ruled that iGO’s chosen model was valid.

Speaking on the panel with Harris, industry expert and consultant Troy Ross suggested that ruling is “critical” to what other provinces do in the future as it sets a legal precedent that a conduct-and-manage model is Criminal Code-compliant.

“Some provinces were waiting to see how well or how poorly the Ontario model performed, and some were waiting on this legitimate legal question of is this conduct and manage model truly legal?” Ross told attendees. “It’s a game-changer, frankly. 

“I think this last domino coming down fully will have a number of other provinces saying ‘what they’re doing down there works, we should start.’”

How do other provinces feel?

As for which other provinces in Canada could follow suit, two of the most-mentioned possibilities have been British Columbia and Québec. At face value, the outlooks for those provinces look very different.

Naturally, political leaning has a big impact on the legislative direction a province chooses. It’s noteworthy that two provinces with Conservative premiers have pursued the open commercial model to date. The B.C. government, under Premier and B.C. NDP leader David Eby, has opposed Ontario’s push for international gaming liquidity to be considered. B.C. appears to want to keep gaming under government control, with the British Columbia Lottery Corporation’s PlayNow.com platform currently used in not only B.C. but also Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

In Québec, a high-profile movement to try to push La Belle Province towards commercialised gaming is afoot. The Québec Online Gaming Coalition, made up of several operators, advocates for a regulatory framework to allow competition for Loto-Québec’s online gaming and betting monopoly. The most recent word from the provincial government, under the leadership of the centre-right Coalition Avenir Québec and leader François Legault, is that there are no plans to do so. The government cited concerns around problem gambling as a major reservation.

“Two is much different than one.”

Patrick Harris, Rubicon Strategy

At a leaders panel of crown corporation presidents and CEOs at CGS, Loto-Québec’s Jean-Francois Bergeron echoed BCLC’s Pat Davis and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation’s Patrick Daigle reiterations that each lottery’s respective offering is the only “legal” online gaming product in its province.

However, Bergeron stressed that regulated competition has its benefits.

“Competition is actually really good because it forces us to be better,” Bergeron said. “Competitors are a great source of inspiration. There are great operators out there, and we even use some of them as a go-to model. As crown corporation operators, it’s certainly not up to us to defend that model, but to operate it successfully within the current legislation.”

AGLC has made similar conciliatory noises. The commission’s VP of Gaming Dan Keene told Canadian Gaming Business recently that the crown corporation supports Premier Danielle Smith exploring commercial gaming if it means lost grey-market revenues can be captured for the benefit of the province. 

The best thing for Canadians?

That revenue generation is one of three pillars of the common argument for further iGaming and betting expansion across Canada, along with greater consumer protection and greater consumer choice. As panelists at CGS noted, it’s hard to argue that hasn’t worked well for Ontario.

“I hope that inevitably we are looking at a fully regulated Canadian market which I truly and firmly believe is what is best for all Canadians,” said Beber, CEO of Quebec coalition member BET99.

“This is an industry that historically has existed in the shadows,” added PointsBet Canada CEO Scott Vanderwel, sat beside Beber. “What we’ve seen in Ontario is that it can move out of the shadows productively… It’s an industry that has a lot to give. I hope we can move this country from activity that’s happening in the shadows to activity that’s happening in the light.”

In that regard, Ontario was the precedent; advocates believe Alberta, when it happens, can be the start of a pattern. As Harris put it, “two is much different than one.”