The 2022 Canadian Gaming Summit Takes Place in Toronto

Dave Schwab Sports Betting Expert

2 minute read

This year’s Canadian Gaming Summit was held in Toronto from June 7-9. It was only fitting that this annual event for the country’s entire gaming industry took place in Ontario. Canada’s most populated province launched its brand new commercial sports betting and iGaming industry on April 4 of this year.

The Canadian Gaming Summit covers all aspects of the gaming industry. However, the primary focus of this year’s event centered on sports betting. Ontario’s commercial sector includes US heavyweights such as FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM.

Local players such as theScore Bet have also made an early impact in the Ontario sports betting marketplace. Other commercial sportsbook operators going live in Ontario include BetRivers, 888sport and Unibet.

The Canadian government amended its laws for legal sports betting in 2021. The primary change was the addition of legal betting on single games. Prior to August of last year, the only legal sports wager across all provinces was on multi-team parlays.

Ontario is the only province to date to add commercial sportsbook operators. Under the existing system, Government-owned lottery corporations controlled sports betting and casino iGaming within each Canadian province. This remains the case outside of Ontario.

Focusing on the future of sports betting in the country, the Canadian Gaming Summit created the following panels:

• Sports betting integrity
• The future of sports betting
• Sportsbook advertising in Ontario
• Understanding the sportsbook consumer
• Betting on esports

The overall format of the conference incorporated feedback from its Summit Advisory Committees. This group consists of senior executives from Provincial Lottery Corporations along with commercial operators.

The goal was to take a collaborative approach to the topics at hand. There was also a high level of peer-to-peer delegate interaction geared towards the most important issues on the agenda. This year’s Summit could set the groundwork for further expansion of the commercial gaming sector in Canada.

Going over the actual three-day agenda, specific topics included iGaming compliance in Ontario, policies for sportsbook advertising and betting with Bitcoin. There was also a comprehensive review covering the first two months of Ontario’s commercial industry.

Another key topic up for discussion creating a responsible gambling culture. Corruption in sports while keeping athletes safe was also discussed. Round table sessions for new gaming trends and technologies were included in the three-day schedule of events.

The official Provincial Gaming Summit Host was OLG ( Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation). A few of the other primary industry sponsors included Kambi, IGT, Aristocrat Gaming and Entain. Better Collective was one of the principal sports betting sector sponsors.

The entire Canadian gaming industry continues to evolve due to changes in the law. Ontario has set the pace for individual provinces with more changes to the current system in the works. The 2022 Canadian Gaming Summit could prove to be the starting point for many of those discussions.

Written by Dave Schwab, our US sports betting industry expert.

Dave Schwab

Dave Schwab has been covering the sports betting industry for the past 12 years as the main focus of his specialty marketing company for online content. This endeavor followed a previous career in the field of sales and marketing in the wholesaling sector.Most of his weekly pieces focus on the rapidly expanding legal US sports betting industry. However, he still does extensive work covering betting angles that can provide a competitive edge to avid players. Dave believes that it is always a challenge to take past results and current form to try and correctly determine a future result. Sports brings out the unpredictability in what should be a fairly predictable outcome based on the stats, facts and recent trends in a particular matchup. More from Dave Schwab