Canada Finally Has Regulated Online Sports Betting in Ontario
Online sportsbooks are a crucial part of sports betting. A sportsbook is what operators keep to manage the odds. They share the odds for a game and accept betting wages accordingly.
With the term online attached to sportsbooks, they simply go over the internet with operators performing all the actions digitally. An online sportsbook platform assists its users in logging into their accounts, placing bets, and collecting rewards.
Their operations can spread over different categories. Looselines is an online sportsbook platform that has always stood out in the industry with its unique features like transparency, anonymity, and global access. Bettors should check out the Looselines review before trying out the platform.
A Warm Welcome
Ontario is the most populated province of Canada. It rarely comes as a surprise that the market of online sports betting is starting in Ontario. The province has always offered a sign of warm welcome to such initiatives.
The gesture goes a year back when single-sports betting was legalized with a vote of 57-20 in June 2021. Bill C-218 witnessed five absenteeism but was still passed with the majority. It was not easy to get the bill through.
It sought to amend the Canadian Criminal Code by removing the language that required sports bets to be placed over multiple events. Once amended, every province in the country was given the responsibility to frame their own structure of rules and regulations to get single-sports betting started.
A small jump to the present, online sports betting has now also been regulated in addition to retail single-sports betting.
As of the time of writing, 27 operators have already received their respective licenses to start taking bets from the interested participants.
Ontario rides high with a population of 13.4 million residents, according to the Canadian Census (2016). Operators that are gearing up to accept bets under the development of iGaming are ultimately looking to tap into the market of 13.4 million potential eligible customers.
All the operations and licenses are being overlooked by the Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario. Some of the operators who have received their licenses are FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, LottoGo, and Bet365, among 22 others.
DraftKings Canada surprisingly remained away from the list. However, it is expected to soon get the license from the authorities.
Before these players entered the market, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation, and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation were already functioning single-game online sports betting since 2021.
With new players in the market, users can expect to witness some of the new odds that the traditional players lacked or never offered.
Meanwhile, the launch of online sports betting sites in Ontario has put a dent in daily fantasy sports. It got more severe when FanDuel and DraftKings pulled their prospective offerings from Ontario.
What fueled FanDuel and DraftKings pulling their offerings was Ontario adding daily fantasy sports to their betting bill, requiring them to pay $100,000 in licensing fees and 20% of their revenue to the Government of the province.
The future of online sportsbooks relies on how well users are able to analyze the trend of the game. There will be excitement only if they, or at least some of them, can predict the outcome. This will take some time within which online sportsbook platforms are expected to further improve their odds offering and user experience.
Users may also want to focus on learning different terms that are used in the online sports betting world. The more technical terms they understand, the more they will engage with the online sportsbook platforms.