- Ontario will launch their regulated and competitive iGaming market on April 4.
- The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) is the oversight body for sports betting in the province.
- Ontario’s sports betting market should be one of the most competitive–and most lucrative–ecosystems found anywhere in the world.
Ontario’s regulated and competitive iGaming market will launch on Monday, April 4 and should quickly transform the province into one of the biggest–and best–gaming jurisdictions in North America. Ontario’s regulatory structure is one that every other jurisdiction should emulate–but they won’t since most either consider ‘competition’ a dirty word or else just want to give it lip service while juicing in the usual incumbents and political cronies.
Yesterday, we looked at a list of companies that had expressed interest in the Ontario market and today several of those were added to the ‘licensee’ list.
LATEST ONTARIO LICENSEES (AS OF 5:00 PM EDT 4/1/22)
PARTYPOKER–Another Entain Group brand that indicated they had applied for licensing in their latest earnings call. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) added them to the active licensee list in their most recent update. According to their license entry, they’ll be offering casino games, sports betting and poker at on.partycasino.ca, on.partysports.ca and onpartypoker.ca respectively.
BWIN–bwin (they stylize it with all lower case) is an Entain Group brand that is well known throughout Europe, primarily for sports betting. They also offer bingo, poker and casino games in various markets. Entain wasn’t clear about if they were going to introduce this brand to the Ontario market but it appears that they are. Based on the license information on the AGCO website, it looks like they’ll be doing sports betting only–at least for now. Given the nature of Ontario’s regulatory framework it’s kind of silly to offer sports betting and not pick up the higher margin casino games.
CAESARS SPORTSBOOK–Ontario launch was discussed in February 22 earnings report though with a lot more to talk about (eg: the New York grease fire) it didn’t get extensive coverage. As a result, they weren’t really clear about a timeline for launch in Ontario but here we go as they’re up on the AGCO website. According to the license information, they’re only offering sports betting. There may be a backstory to that–Caesars Entertainment operates a retail gaming property in Ontario but they don’t own it. The property is the Windsor Casino aka Caesars Windsor, which Caesars operates but the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) owns. The property is just 2.2 miles from downtown Detroit, Michigan and depending on the traffic through the Windsor Tunnel can be reached in around 15 minutes. It could be that Caesars not offering mobile casino games in Ontario at this point is an effort not to upset the OLG–they also offer mobile casino betting through the lottery website. Caesars Entertainment has an earnings call coming up on May 3, 2022 and maybe they’ll give some insight.
WHITE HAT GAMING–Listed as ‘TWGC’ on the AGCO licensing information page, this is White Hat Gaming which is a well known gaming technology company based in Malta. They offer sports betting in conjunction with Kambi on the ‘B2B’ side but they’re licensed here as an ‘Operator’ as well as a ‘Supplier’. As you can see from the LinkedIn screenshot, they’ll be operating seven casino brands–this is their first jurisdiction in North America where they’re launching their own B2C brands. They’ve got an impressive array of casino games of every type imaginable. They’ll be operating in Ontario under these names and domains:
CASIGO (www.casigo.com)
DREAM VEGAS (www.dreamvegas.com)
FIREVEGAS (www.firevegas.com)
GATE 777 (www.gate777.com)
HELLO CASINO (www.hellocasino.com)
JACKPOT VILLAGE (www.jackpotvillage.com)
PLAYZEE (www.playzee.com)
Here’s the list of previously licensed operators. We’ll have more updates as we get them and plenty of coverage of the Ontario launch next week.
ALREADY LICENSED
LOTTOGO
COOLBET
FANDUEL
FITZDARES
LEOVEGAS
NSUS LIMITED (WSOP)
POINTSBET
VHL ONTARIO LIMITED (888 SPORTS)
UNIBET ONTARIO
THE SCORE BET
RIVALRY ONTARIO
ROYAL PANDA
RUSH STREET INTERACTIVE (BETRIVERS)
BET365
ONTARIO LOTTERY & GAMING (PROLINE+)
BETMGM
