The Ontario Sports Betting Standards Should Please Operators and Stock Holders

Back in August, the comment period for the Ontario sports betting standards draft closed. In September, the final regulatory standards for sports betting in Ontario were released. These rules should be more than satisfactory for sports betting operators.

Ontario sports betting should come online in the next few months, either in late 2021 or in early 2022.

The original document, outlining the regulation of future iGaming in the province has been largely unchanged, it has just seen the addition of Ontario sports betting regulations. There are six subcategories into which the draft document has been divided.

These are:

• Entity Level
• Responsible Gambling
• Prohibiting Access to Designated Groups and Player Account Management
• Ensuring Game Integrity and Player Awareness
• Information Security and Protection of Assets
• Minimizing Unlawful Activity Related to Gaming

It is clearly outlined in the standards that the operators will be required to present an understandable and straightforward method for placing bets. Also, all of the details of the bets must be clearly made to the bettor prior to the finalization of the wager.

Operators will also be required to implement systems that will dissuade continuous, extended, and/or impulsive playing on their platform.

In addition, operators will need to:

• Alert customers if wagers are or are not accepted
• Identify parlays
• If odds change prior to the confirmation of a wager, the player will need to have the power to confirm or withdraw their wager
• Players must have the ability to manually opt out when they have selected the automatic acceptance of changes in wagers
• Players must be notified of when wagers can and cannot be made
• Games that are free-to-play cannot be misleading when it comes to payouts, odds, or any part of a wager for value
• All wagers must be denoted in Canadian dollars
• Bettors must be informed of the data source for settling wagers

Certain people will not be able to place bets due to the Ontario Standards. These excluded people include coaches, athletes, owners, managers, and anyone who has enough authority to affect the outcome of a sporting event. Anyone who has access to information that is not available to the public is also not allowed to engage in sports betting.

The Ontario Standards also do not allow for anyone involved in an event to set the odds for the event. The Standards require that gaming operators who learn of a prohibited person placing bets to notify a sports league. But, as of right now there does not appear to be a requirement that they notify a regulator of this prohibited person betting. And, the sports leagues themselves also do not appear to be required to notify operators if they learn of a prohibited person placing bets.

The fourth section of the Ontario Standards uses the same language that was used in regards to iGaming.

An official league data mandate in Ontario has not been secured, much to the chagrin of sports leagues and their lobbyists. Operators will be required to have controls set to monitor and report activity to an independent integrity monitor. These integrity monitors will be required to share suspicious betting information with other monitors as well as to notify all sports betting operators that are participating in Ontario.

An operator will need to act in good faith when corruption is suspected in choosing to void a bet.

A list of approved events was not provided in the Ontario Standards. Instead, the Standards outlined eleven criteria for the determination of whether an event will be deemed permissible.

The Ontario Standards have a lot of common rules and regulations outlined. This includes the fact that the majority of bettors will need to be over the age of 18. And, some of the other safeguards for integrity that have been set. The Standards make sure to outline that there will be no betting on events that involve any kind of animal cruelty or fighting.

When it comes to esports, the Ontario Standards outline that they are considered a sports event as long as they have the proper integrity safeguards required. But, virtual sports do not fall under the guidelines for governing event and sports betting, instead falling under those for iGaming.

The final Ontario Standards have also outlined requirements for interdependent integrity monitors. They have stricter requirements than other jurisdictions do at this time.

At this time, the Ontario sportsbook rules outline that they will not be accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, despite growing interest.

The Ontario Standards have been deemed industry-friendly, especially when compared to other rules that have been outlined in North American territories. But, it is not yet obvious who will be granted access to the Ontario sports betting market. And, the tax rates have also not yet been outlined. Even so, the Ontario Standards are seen as more permissive than other rules and regulations in areas with legal sports betting.

Written by Allie Nelson, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert. You can learn more about our author's expertise here.