More than one year on from the regulation of the Ontario gaming sector, gambling businesses have each adapted to the market in their own way. But how can operators stand out from the crowd in North America’s most competitive market?
With every gold rush comes the prospectors.
In the 16 months following the regulation of the gaming sector in Ontario, gambling operators of all shapes and sizes have thrown the dice to get a slice of the biggest and most dynamic market in North America.
Those involved range from former grey market players trying to make the regulated transition, the big European operators, media brands which have grown a betting wing and land-based companies trying to get in on the action – plus everything in between.
The landscape
Ontario has become an incredibly competitive market, with iGaming Ontario recording 46 companies operating 71 brands as of Q1 2023.
However, one trend to note is its diversity. This is especially striking when compared to the US which, buttressed by restrictive market access requirements, often sees its ring-fenced jurisdictions devolve into a FanDuel-DraftKings duopoly.
This is less the case in Ontario.
Bet365 is the market leader, followed closely by theScore Bet operator Penn and Flutter, through its PokerStars and Fanduel brands. A bevy of smaller operators follow, all taking a healthy market share.
This is a province which saw CA$14.0bn in online wagers from 920,000 consumers in Q1, leading to gaming revenue of $545m, making the province North America’s largest single market by revenue.
Grey market transition
The Canadian online gambling market shares many themes with its cousins in the US – but enough is different to mark it definitively as a foreign country.
Unlike the States, where the grey market question was definitively solved in 2006 with the passage of the UIGEA, Ontario had a thriving offshore segment prior to the market launch on 4 April 2022.
After this date, many of these operators shifted into the white market, which was of course the goal of regulation in the first place.
PointsBet Canada chief commercial officer Nic Sulsky says that in addition to these old timers making the grey-white transition with significant player data, “a lot of the other prominent operators that launched also came to the table with databases of users.”
