EDITOR’S NOTE

A New Frontier

A lot can happen in a year.

THE CANADIAN GAMING industry has been hit desperately hard by the COVID-19 pandemic since the first provincial states of emergency and subsequent shutdowns began to sweep across the country in March of 2020. The pre-pandemic societal norms feel like a distant age in April 2021 and, in many ways, things will never likely be the same again.

Though closures and fallen revenues have been among the negative impacts of the last 12 months, it is too easy to dwell on the bad. Instead, here, we look at two of the major ways the industry appears to be on the verge of seismic change.

The Canadian Gaming Association’s Standards for Cashless Systems have laid a thorough and extensive groundwork for the continued adoption of cashless technology within the industry. This is a trend that was already underway before the pandemic shifted the landscape of gaming, but recent events have brought it sharply into focus.

In this, the first Canadian Gaming Business issue of 2021, we spoke to major industry players about the importance of these standards and the opportunities they present. We also quizzed gaming technology giants in our Industry Q&A about what has been driving the gravitation towards cashless technology, what’s currently on offer for operators and players, and where we may go from here.

Our second major focus is what has been perhaps the hottest recent topic in Canadian gaming: the potential, finally, of major progress on sports betting in the country. With the progress of Bill C-218 to amend the Criminal Code to allow single-event sports betting north of the border – and give provinces license to shape their own markets – there is a flurry of activity underway in Canada.

We spoke to Toronto-based sports app and sportsbook theScore’s COO Benjie Levy about what this could mean for their home market, as well as chatting to operators and lottery corporations about what may lie on the path ahead for Canadian sports betting.

As always, there’s also an update from the CGA themselves including news of their exciting CGA Academy initiative, and we profile three new association members who all have a keen interest in how the sports betting market may develop.

Above all, we hope to see the Canadian gaming industry flourish in 2021 and continue down the path to recovery. The future may not look the same as the past, but there’s so much to be excited and optimistic about.

Tom Nightingale Managing Editor