FROM THE TOP

FROM THE TOP: NO WAY, PARLAY

With single-event sports wagering set to be legalized in Canada, Tim Poole assesses the anticipation that’s building around the potential billion-dollar market.

If you were asked to name the most exciting sports betting market in North America right now, where would it be? New Jersey, the poster child for the legal sports betting market ever since PASPA was overturned? Nearby Pennsylvania, where online gaming has been similarly embraced? Could it be Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia, Michigan or any of the recently launched, burgeoning state marketplaces?

In the here and now, all of the above and more are generating the kind of buzz that was merely a vision in early 2018. Now, it’s a full-blown reality and myriad headline partnerships, state revenue reports and marketing offers are ensuring legal sports betting is truly making waves on a national scale in the US. Yet, among those with a view to the future, there is awe at the potential of key markets that have yet to even legalize sports wagering. How big, for example, can California or New York become in terms of both legal sports betting handle and revenue?

You may have noticed, however, that our question referred to North America and not the US specifically. Indeed, looking north, it’s no understatement to suggest sports wagering in Canada could yet generate more excitement than any other up-and-coming market. That’s saying a lot given the prestigious list of aforementioned names. With the news in late 2020 that Canada is on the path to legalizing single-event sports wagering, headlines and optimism were created in equal measure. The industry has not failed to notice the potential uptick in Canada’s sports betting future.

For anyone who either works or partakes in sports betting, the notion of there being no single-event wagering will sound completely bizarre. If you want to back the Super Bowl winner,

US Open Champion (golf or tennis), or bet on the NBA It is a hopeful time in general for Canadian gaming, despite playoff finals, you simply can’t. That is unless you combine it as the effects of the pandemic, because of the promise online part of a two or three-way parlay (as a minimum). With those betting brings. In Ontario, online gaming is on its way to odds, the house will almost certainly win long term, meaning becoming legalized, with the CGA again applauding legislation fun and entertainment, but also the ability to apply skill and that aims to make this a reality. According to the Association, analysis, are all severely reduced. online gaming has been gaining in acceptance in Canada for

It has rightly been described as archaic now that Canada’s more than a decade. Ontarians are said to already be playing sports betting future looks so much brighter, with a genuinely online on a daily basis – so why not legalize this form of competitive marketplace able to develop to meet genuine gambling with appropriate regulatory oversight? demand. FansUnite Entertainment CEO Scott Burton was keen Again, though, Burns couldn’t fail to mention how influential to laud the opportunity in the Jan/Feb edition of Gambling US sports betting success has been in showing the need for Insider, while Brian Wyman, partner at the Innovation Group, Canada to follow suit. Rather than looking on in jealousy, stressed the necessity of this legalization in a January edition Canadian gaming stakeholders can foresee real promise in of GI Friday. Two crucial reasons their future if a similar system is Wyman put forward were competition from border “FOR ANYONE WHO replicated. Naturally, responsible gaming concerns may be at the states in the US and the fact so much of Canada’s current sports betting is done on the EITHER WORKS OR PARTAKES IN SPORTS forefront of anyone still opposed to Canadian sports betting or online gaming. Keith Whyte, executive gray market. He wrote: “What does this mean BETTING, THE NOTION director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, features later for Canada? Canada’s legal and OF THERE BEING in this issue and recently spoke as regulated sports betting market was approximately C$200m (US$158.5m) NO SINGLE-EVENT part of the GI Huddle’s problem gambling series. There, he admitted in 2019, including interactive. WAGERING WILL the US is far behind the UK – where Meanwhile, the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA) estimates that SOUND COMPLETELY systems and attitudes are still far from perfect – on the responsible more than C$4bn was wagered on BIZARRE. IF YOU WANT gambling front. offshore gray market interactive sports wagering sites, or another TO BACK THE SUPER But that in itself is all the more reason to regulate than not approximately C$200m in revenue. BOWL WINNER, US regulate, ensuring a system can be And a whopping C$10bn, or C$500m in revenue, was wagered illegally OPEN CHAMPION put in place to safeguard players. As the CGA has previously noted, with bookies within Canada. The (GOLF OR TENNIS), plenty is already wagered by Innovation Group forecasts that the legal and regulated Canadian sports OR BET ON THE NBA Canadian bettors, but simply not as part of a legal market, thereby betting market can approximate C$1.9bn, nearly 10x its current volume, within five years.” PLAYOFF FINALS, YOU SIMPLY CAN’T.” not helping the country’s tax revenue and always adding that extra element of risk for players.

These numbers are not to be Besides, if a sports bettor wanting sneezed at and, in a statement to wager on a single event then back in November 2020, CGA president & CEO Paul Burns has to add two more picks just to make it legal, the law is (who appears later in this issue) further stressed the necessity actually encouraging players to gamble less responsibly. of legalization due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 Clearly, there are still some complications and intricacies pandemic. Burns said: “Amending the Criminal Code to to get past, with Canada – like any market – having its own legalize single-event sports wagering will provide provinces unique nature (even more so, each province within Canada). with the necessary tools to deliver a safe and legal option to But the time to move ahead looks to have arrived for Canadian Canadians while enabling economic benefits to flow to licensed sports betting and perhaps Ontario online gaming, too, and gaming operators, communities and provincial governments. the excitement it is generating is fully justified. The US has I can’t emphasize enough how this small change to the been talked about as the go-to, high-growth sports betting Criminal Code would help communities recover from the market within global gaming for some time. Now Canada economic devastation of the ongoing COVID-19 shutdown.” can begin to enter that conversation, too.