editorial viewpoint
Time’s A Wastin’ To Legalize Single Event Sports Betting By Alan Halberstadt *If you have a comment on this topic, please post it under my column in the CITY section of BizXmagazine.com
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asino gambling came to Windsor 26 years ago. I opposed it because City Council didn’t listen to my cries for a referendum. Unencumbered, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) barged ahead and opened a temporary casino in the old Art Gallery of Windsor in May of 1994. Another temp, the Northern Belle Riverboat Casino, opened in December of 1994. Windsor was off to the races as Ontario’s first legalized gambling trailblazer. The temporary houses proved to be such a money cow that the permanent casino was bought and paid for by the time it opened in 1998, and the OLG built the art gallery a new edifice to boot. Detroiters had previously opposed legalized gambling in two referendums, but couldn’t open three temporary downtown casinos fast enough when they realized that Windsor was eating their lunch.
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How the tables have turned! In 2020, it appears certain that Detroit will beat Windsor to the punch by introducing single event sports betting while the Canadian government continues almost a decade of dithering. Following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing single game betting, Michigan was among the first 20 states to sign it into law on December 20 last year. Single event betting differs from parlay betting, like Pro Line, where gamblers combine multiple individual bets into one bet. The three Detroit casinos need to acquire licences before wagering begins, although there is a possibility that could be rushed through in time for the “March Madness” college basketball tournament, starting March 17. Windsor West MP Brian Masse is the
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single event crusader on this side of the border, after taking over the file from NDP brother, Joe Comartin, who retired in 2015. Comartin won support from all parties for his private member’s bill for legalization in the House of Commons in 2012, only to see it stall in a dysfunctional senate and not brought to a vote. Since then, the Liberals have shown little interest in amending the criminal code to make single game betting legal, even after the changed circumstances in the U.S. have raised fears that Michigan casinos will pilfer customers from casinos across Canada. Federal Justice Minister David Lametti, buttressed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has indicated that gambling reform is not a priority. It’s small potatoes compared to other matters like the First Nations rail blockade. This maddens Masse, who notes that professional sports leagues no longer oppose single game betting, an about face from 2012 when the senate faced heavy lobbying from major league baseball. The premise then was that legalization could lead to the fixing of games to cash in on big bets. So what’s the problem now? “They just can’t be bothered,” fumes Masse, essentially accusing Trudeau’s government of being lazy. “This issue is the poster child for how the Liberals just don’t want to work.”
