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CANADA: HOW ONTARIO IS BRINGING THE SPORTS BETTING INDUSTRY ‘INTO THE LIGHT’ AFTER 11 LONG YEARS OF WAITING, the passage of Bill
C-218 in the Canadian Senate will pave the way for sportsbook operators to work with provincial partners across the Great White North - but what can we expect from the market in years to come?
BY ERIN GALLAGHER
I
n a roundtable discussion for SBC Leaders, Jordan Gnat, CEO of PlayMaker, Terry Debono, Partner at the Debono Group, and John Levy, CEO and Founder of theScore, assess the ways in which market entrants can persuade bettors to choose licensed operators over the offshore companies that they've grown accustomed to using. Kicking off discussions, Gnat believes that operators must be given a competitive advantage over any unlicensed companies - with favourable regulations ensuring that players opt for the legal option. He began: “Bettors have been betting online in Canada for decades. Bill C-218’s passage now moves this activity into the regulated market. To channel existing bettors into the regulated market, the regulations have to be such that the product offering and customer experience and marketing tools of the regulated operators is competitive with what they have had previously.
IF THE REGULATED MARKET MEANS THEIR EXPERIENCE IS INFERIOR, THEY WILL SIMPLY CONTINUE WITH THE UNREGULATED OPERATOR
18 SBC LEADERS • AUGUST 2021
“Players are accustomed to an offering - if the regulated market means their experience is inferior, they will simply continue with the unregulated operator. However, in general, people will choose a legal versus an illegal option, everything being equal. “For me, this is the single most important thing to get right in the roll out of the newly regulated market. This means allowing all bet types, marketing tools, liquidity for poker and exchanges, novelty bets, casino and bingo games. A full suite of products and services.”
For Levy, theScore will persuade bettors to choose licensed operators by deploying the same strategy it already uses in the US market. He said: “Our basic underlying philosophy of how to approach sports betting is really to treat it as one aspect of why people love sports. “It’s all about an integrated approach between the media - which we have with theScore app - and introducing sports betting in an infused fashion. It should be a combined experience, and to be able to effectively do that is at our core. People tend to label us as a digital sports media company, but first and foremost, we’re a technology company. “Quite frankly, the success we’ve had with the app and with ScoreBet is because of our focus on the end user and creating this bespoke technology. Ultimately, our end goal has always been to own and control that platform.”
