Ontario has made no bones about the fact that its online gambling market has, in financial terms, been an overwhelming success. The authorities would argue that the success is not only monetary, either.
Canadians have been gambling online, whether legally or not, for more than two decades. With a reported 19 million active online gambling accounts in the country, legislators have been keen to ensure that the people behind those accounts are protected. However, different jurisdictions have gone about protecting the public in various ways.
Alberta, like British Columbia, initially opted for a province-run online gambling site. British Columbia has PlayNow, and Alberta has PlayAlberta. On paper, these are the only places that residents can legally gamble online in the provinces. However, in practice, residents try their luck on hundreds of offshore gambling sites that operate outside the jurisdiction of Canadian regulators or law enforcers.
What is regulated?
Recent polling by Ipsos revealed that 90% of Albertans use the grey market, and around one in eight (or 12.3%) use a combination of unregulated and regulated platforms. However, over half of those polled believed they were playing on regulated sites and were attracted to the idea of playing on them, as they felt safer.
British Columbia might think that it is doing better, as its PlayNow site has been around longer, having been established in 2010, and there have been extensive advertising and communication efforts to educate players about it being the province’s official site. However, among those polled, it was still less than a quarter of people who played exclusively on that site, and around 40% played on a combination of regulated and non-regulated sites.
Most people who are new to online gambling take the view that, as they do not know much about the market, they want to play it safe. Before the Ontario market launched, everyone in the province was playing on unregulated sites. However, now over 70% of Ontarians who gamble do so on regulated sites, and the province is earning healthy revenues in license fees and taxation on profits. In BC and Alberta, those profits flow out of the province, which is one of the reasons Alberta has passed all the necessary legislation to launch a commercial market alongside PlayAlberta (a sort of mix-and-match approach).
Playing it safe
However, BC says it has no plans to legalize online betting, despite major website operators lobbying to pressure lawmakers to follow Ontario and Alberta in legalizing private online betting. The Ipsos polling found that, more than anything else, gamblers are searching for sites that offer fast withdrawals, secure payment options, bonus offers, and no-fee withdrawals. Review site OnlineCasino.ca’s experts are there to guide players with all of that and help them find the best payout online casino in Canada, great game selections, and user-friendly websites and apps. Which is just as well, because the government says it has no plans to make changes.
Resisting the pressure
Lobbyists from the world’s largest online gambling platforms have been in contact with top-tier BC government officials, arguing that as people are gambling on the websites, it is better for them to be regulated. They want to ensure that rogue operators are unable to offer gambling services to residents. They argue that if the sector were regulated, it would generate tax revenue for the province. However, Chris Donnelly, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, is reported as saying that the Government is not currently planning any changes to gaming regulations.
Michael Thompson, executive director of the BC Gaming Industry Association, which represents land-based gambling venues, is not impressed. He said,
“If land-based operators decided to do things in the province without a licence, they would get in trouble for it, so I think there’s an unfairness there that needs to be addressed.”
Huge pressure
Irish online platform Flutter is one of the companies behind the latest lobbying push. This month, they announced that, in under three years of operating in the USA, their site, FanDuel, had become the number one iGaming site in the country. However, they, along with companies like Bet365, Entain, PartyPoker, and SportingBet, want to replicate their successes in Ontario and the US by expanding the regulated Canadian market. Meanwhile, Australian PointsBet, which withdrew from the US last year, claimed that the Alberta market was of crucial importance to its business plans.
“We see Alberta as not just another market, but as a critical region that can help shape our future.” said PointsBet Canada CEO Scott Vanderwel.
The pros
We have to assume that changes to the BC market would therefore be the cherry on the cake for the down-under platform. The lobbyists’ argument is simple: people are already gambling on their websites, so it makes sense for them to be regulated. Reputable companies do not want to be conflated with shady offshore wannabes or straightforward scam sites, and they currently have to work very hard to differentiate themselves. They achieve this by clearly displaying licenses from reputable jurisdictions, such as Malta, but would like a BC stamp of approval even more.
The pro-regulation lobbyists argue that a significant number of people already gamble on their sites, and that regulation will strengthen protection for players. However, some people are concerned that regulation could lead to higher rates of problematic gambling and addiction.
And the cons
Researchers who study addictive behaviour are not so much worried about the sites that exist now, but what they could morph into in the future. Spencer Murch, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Calgary and a cognitive scientist who studies addictive behaviours, says.
“The thing that makes online gambling really different from other addictive products is that online gambling changes really quickly, online gambling can change weekly as developers find new incentive structures to convince players to bet more.”
He believes that online gambling would likely only become more popular if regulated. “When we think about what will be the impacts of opening up this market, we should anticipate the prevalence of online gambling will go up and problems associated with it will go up.”
A waiting game
While the government maintains its stance that nothing will change, it is likely keeping a close eye on Alberta to see what happens there. Meanwhile, there is more than enough going on to keep everyone entertained.
