The long-time journalist and content specialist announced in February her departure from SBC as Managing Editor. Last month, Welman let it be known she was joining Brianne Doura-Schawohl’s consulting firm to support the practice’s work around responsible gambling programs and policies. Among the topics covered on the podcast:

• Welman’s decision to walk away from SBC and choosing a different path in the gambling industry by joining Doura-Schawohl, and what’s involved in her new role. We also asked her to take a trip down memory lane on the evolution of regulated online sports betting and gaming in the U.S.
• The current goings-on around gambling in the U.S. of A., including the ongoing bunfight/legal wranglings involving politicians, regulators, gaming operators and prediction market proprietors (and oh yes, lawyers, many, many lawyers).
• Of course, we wanted Welman’s thoughts on the incoming legal, open gaming market in Alberta and asked her to look back at four years of regulated, competitive gaming in Ontario. That included asking the experienced poker player about the liquidity issue that has involved courts in Canada.
• She had an opinion or three on the results of a recent study conducted by Gaming Public Policy Consulting around media coverage of the gaming industry, and the media coverage of that study.

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Thomas, who joined Sportradar as Head of Snooker Operations in late 2012 and has served in her current role for a year now, made her maiden appearance on the GNCS at the end of a robust first quarter of 2026. Sportradar tapped into its November 2025 acquisition of IMG Arena to last week announce it is expanding its agreement with Hard Rock Bet to add PGA Tour and UFC data, odds and enhanced in-play wagering capabilities to its existing set of services in the U.S. of A. Earlier in the week, the company announced the launch of igaming brand Playradar which will combine sports data “expertise” with casino content for operators around the world, including Canada. That bit of news came on the heels of the hiring of former Playtech Live CEO Edo Haitin to oversee Sportradar’s igaming business.

We asked Thomas for her thoughts on last week’s announcements and Sportradar’s increasing investment in igaming along with:

• The company’s involvement in this summer’s FIFA World Cup men’s tournament in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico;
• Other opportunities available through the IMG Arena acquisition;
• Working with operators to offer more in-play betting products at a time that some regulators and others are asking for a reduction in said products;
• Sportradar’s ongoing role supporting the efforts of leagues, organizations and other bodies in monitoring suspicious betting activity;
• If/how does the company fit with prediction markets, specifically given Sportradar’s deal with Major League Baseball, which just introduced Polymarket as a partner in a multi-year agreement.
• How Sportradar is exploiting the growth of women’s sports in North America and Europe.

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Suchar, who launched the Prague-based company in 2018, continues to be bullish on the esports and esports betting industry despite recent layoffs at Riot Games and ClickOut Media. Suchar said it’s business as usual at Oddin, which supplies B2B products and services around esports odds, trading and risk management.

The company’s co-founder also got into the state of esports in Canada, Oddin’s interest here and the need for the industry to continue its focus on integrity monitoring around the world.

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Godfree, whose company creates mobile apps and websites for sportsbook, casino and lottery operators, is among the legions of industry stakeholders on the road to regulation in Alberta. He provided his thoughts on the opportunities with an open market in the western Canadian province and the rules that have been in put in place for the application process. Godfree believes Mkodo’s current partnership with the Western Canada Lottery Corporation and AGLC has the company well-prepared to expand their presence there. 

McAllister also asked his guest about the ongoing evolution of geolocation technology – including mkodo’s GeoLocs product and the evolution of how artificial intelligence is being used across the gambling industry.

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Since creating The Curling Group with partner Mike Cotton in April 2024, Sulsky and his TCG colleagues have acquired the Grand Slam of Curling from Sportsnet, given that series a major makeover and created Rock League – a series with six mixed-gender teams featuring the best players from around the world. Next month’s series debut in the city below Barrie will come on the heels of an Olympic Winter Games that parlayed competition and controversies into a highly engaged event for curling fans, sports fans and sports bettors. 

Sulsky spoke with us about the impact of the Milan/Cortina Games curling event on the sport and its athletes, the feedback he has received from the athletes on The Curling Group’s promotional efforts (including the ultra-popular Grand Slam of Karaoke), the continued efforts to grow the game around the world, and sports betting’s place within TCG’s marketing strategy.

Also, we asked Sulsky, one of the first senior executives to be hired in Ontario’s open and regulated sports betting and igaming market when he joined PointsBet Canada as Chief Commercial Officer in June 2021, for his thoughts on the recent action taken against his former employer by The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. And, of course, Sulsky and Steve McAllister had a chin wag about the incoming open market in Alberta.

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We recorded our conversation with the gaming industry veteran, who spent 13 years with the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission before accepting the interim CEO role with the new AiGC body, as more operators continued to express interest in joining the open, regulated sports betting and online gaming market in the western Canada province.

Keene spoke with host Steve McAllister about the input he, Service Alberta/Red Tape Reduction Minister Dale Nally and others have received from the gambling industry on their way to opening the application process. We also chatted about the AIGC’s current search for staff and other matters on the road to regulation.

Keene, who is optimistic for a late spring/early summer launch, discussed how Ontario's four-year-old open market influenced Alberta's leaders when they created the gaming framework there, as well as the tweaks made regarding responsible gambling, advertising, AML rules and other issues.

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Burns has been a familiar voice and face on Gaming News Canada’s weekly audio show, going back to the early days when we gathered on Clubhouse every Thursday afternoon to talk about the soon-to-change Canadian gaming industry with the passing of Bill C-218 to legalize single-event sports betting in our home and native land. On this milestone episode, the CGA head honcho offered his thoughts on several recent happenings including:

• The recent actions taken by The Alcohol and Gaming Association of Ontario against both FanDuel and PointsBet Canada.
• The latest tete a tete between Loto-Québec and the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition.
• The iGaming Ontario hiring of former AGCO chief strategy officer Ben Valido as its first Chief Responsible Gaming Officer.
• The CGA’s involvement and the feedback it has received from its membership on the rules placed by operators and suppliers to do business in Alberta’s incoming open and competitive sports betting and gaming marketplace.
• Burns’s recent op-ed on efforts within the Senate and federal government to create its own rules around sports betting advertising.

And much more.

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Algreen joined host Steve McAllister from London to set the table for this year’s gathering of the Canadian gaming industry in the city below Malton, set for May 19-21 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. We spoke with Algreen about another busy year for SBC, which also operates conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Malta, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Lisbon, about the topics to be discussed in Toronto. 

The summit’s dedicated conference agenda will feature three stages, each designed to reflect the key forces shaping Canada’s gaming landscape in 2026. Across two days, the program will cover leadership strategy in sports betting and casino, affiliate and advertising models, cybersecurity, land-based and lottery operations, player protection, and payments and compliance.

Algreen also addressed the impact of the incoming open and competitive gaming market in Alberta on the Canadian summit, and the opportunity for the Toronto event to bring together legal operators and suppliers, provincial lottery and gaming corporations and First Nations gaming businesses and regulators. 

Gaming News Canada is a partner of SBC for the Canadian conference, and we’re offering below a special discount to register for the May rendezvous.

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Luke, the president and CEO of Sport Integrity Canada, spoke with your humble host about a busy time for the rebranded organization, including its tri-focused mandate on safe sport, anti-doping and competition manipulation in our home and native land. SIC collaborated with the Canadian Olympic team pre-Winter Games to educate athletes about integrity monitoring and match fixing, and Luke also addressed the role of the International Olympic Committee in trying to keep the Games free of competition manipulation.

Our conversation also included SIC’s partnerships with companies such as IC360 and Luke’s continuing advocacy for the federal government to sign onto the Macolin Convention. Luke and his organization is also keeping close tabs on this summer’s FIFA World Cup, which will include games here in Canada

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Chernoff, who returned to Covers at the beginning of 2026, this time as Senior Manager – Growth Initiatives, first cut his teeth in the sports betting industry as a sportsbook manager with Bahamas-based A Sure Win in 2011 in the days when lines were set by human beings, not algorithms. The Saskatchewan native also spoke at length about the evolution of regulated gambling in Canada, including a competitive Ontario market that will recognize its four-year anniversary in April and has produced more than $2 billion in tax revenue for the province. 

We also asked Chernoff for his thoughts on the incoming open market in Alberta and on the ongoing business of affiliates in the sports wagering and gaming space.

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Months before the start of a very, very busy sports calendar, Vividata went and did some research on the habits of Canadian sports consumers in this still-evolving era of traditional television, digital and streaming services, and sports betting apps. So, on the eve of the Olympics and the Super Bowl, the timing was rather perfect to have Paul Briggs join your humble host on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.

Briggs, the Senior/Principal Analyst for EMARKETER’s Canadian business did a rather deep dive into the report. That included the ongoing power of live sports for consumers in-stadium and watching from the comfort of their living rooms, in a bar, in a train or at an airport gate. Vividata’s survey also revealed that one-third of sports bettors are wagering at least once a week and 5% are betting daily. Briggs and host Steve McAllister also mentioned the 10 most-engaged sportsbook apps in Canada including three from provincial lottery and gaming corporations.

Briggs also spoke about advertising and sponsorship in the Canadian sports industry and a surprising revelation about merchandise sales.

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The interview with Hincer, the Chair Emeritus of the Canadian Gaming Association who joined Integrity Compliance 360 in October as President, Canadian Operations & Managing Director, Global Advisory Strategy, took place just days after Alberta Gaming Liquor & Cannabis made registration available for the province’s incoming legal sports betting and gaming market. Hincer, who joined gaming industry stakeholders on a call a week ago with Alberta minister Dale Nally and AGLC personnel, provided his thoughts and layers on the next Canadian jurisdiction to join Ontario in a competitive, regulated marketplace.

Hincer, given IC360’s involvement in U.S. college sports, was guarded in his response to our question about a point-shaving plot involving 39-plus players and 17 Division 1 teams in NCAA men’s basketball. He also discussed with host Steve McAllister last week’s announcement of an extended agreement between IC360 and the PGA Tour to incorporate the company’s ProhiBet platform into the tour’s gambling oversight.

Finally, McAllister asked the former CGA chair if he had any words of wisdom for incoming Chair Scott Vanderwel.

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Who to “blame” for this early-morning sweaty session around the boxing ring? That would be Lee McFarland, the creator/owner of Beyond the Gloves, with a helping hand from the Chair/founder of Bede Gaming, Michael Brady. Bede, the sponsors of this august podcast, are supporting the latest opportunity for gaming industry types to live and learn from the teachings of McFarland in Barcelona.

The pro-pugilism pair were our guests on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. McFarland explained the decision to launch Behind the Gloves towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2023 to support people – many of whom were looking to reconnect with peers and others as they began to leave remote work environments. McFarland, who also co-founded Recovery in iGaming last summer, talked about the reaction to his boxing sessions at conferences and company team-building events.

Brady, who was trained by McFarland for his participation in the UK-based SBC Boxing Championship/Oliver’s Wish event, spoke about his enthusiasm for the Behind the Gloves program and the impact it has had on his own life and on Bede employees participating in the BTG sessions.

While we had the two gaming industry veterans in the virtual studio, we also asked them for their thoughts on the current industry landscape. Brady addressed Bede’s partnership with OLG, Ontario’s regulated market, the company’s plans to grow in Canada, and what’s happening in other parts of the world.

While McFarland has sold out his BTG sessions for ICE Barcelona, conference attendees can put their names on a waiting list.

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Gray tackled the issues expected to be of the most hot-button variety across the Canadian and American gambling industries in 2026, including:

• The continuing conflict between prediction markets and sportsbooks which aren’t incorporating PMs into their business, and thoughts on the launch of DraftKings’ prediction market product.
• What’s ahead for Ontario’s competitive legal gaming industry as it marches towards the fourth anniversary of its launch in April, and will it continue to see the growth it experienced in 2025. Gray pontificates about what should be top of mind for operators in the regulated market.
• As we enter the NFL postseason, a Winter Olympics next month, a FIFA World Cup being hosted by Canada, Mexico and the U.S. this summer, the excitement around the Toronto Blue Jays following their return to the World Series in 2025 and the growing popularity of women’s pro sports – including the inaugural season of the WNBA Toronto Tempo coming this spring – 2026 promises to be a big year for bettors and the books. Gray also discussed the changing responsibilities of sportsbook traders and the impact on artificial intelligence and data companies on them. 
• Some advice for the powers-that-be responsible for creating Alberta’s open market, expected to launch sometime this year. 
• The concerns surrounding prop betting by sports leagues/organizations and public health advocates.

And, of course, we asked Gray for his new year’s predictions around the industry in Canada.

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The conversation included a record revenue monthfor Ontario’s legal operators in November with non-adjusted gross gaming revenue surpassing $400 million for the first time since the province’s open, regulated market opened its doors in April 2022. Zochodne and Briggs provided their thoughts on Ontario, the province’s Court of Appeal decision earlier this year around liquidity and what should be top of mind for iGaming Ontario boss Joseph Hillier and Co. going into 2026.

Of course, there’s a segment devoted to Alberta and the provincial government’s plans to launch its expanded legal gaming marketplace next year. Our two media guests chimed in on the industry’s continued efforts around responsible gaming, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s latest plan to turn Niagara Falls into the “Vegas of the North” and a discussion around changes to the Canadian horse racing industry – including Great Canadian Entertainment’s decision earlier this month to close historic Hastings Park.

Finally, Briggs and Zochodne identified some storylines to follow over the next 12 months.

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Yatom-Hay, who previously worked at DraftKings and GamingTech, provided some thoughts and layers on ToonieBet’s past 12 months, which included partnership deals with the Canadian Football League and the Ottawa Senators, the launch of its sportsbook app and competing with big, established brands in the North American gaming space (Soft2Bet is almost set to launch in New Jersey).

On the heels of our interview with Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners on the previous podcast, we asked Yatom-Hay how the Ontario model compares with other jurisdictions (Sweden, Denmark and Mexico, to name a few) where Soft2Bet does business and the lessons learned in Ontario that could be applied to Alberta’s plans for an open gambling market. 

Soft2Bet’s legal beagle provided a few details on the company’s recent call with iGaming Ontario president and CEO Joseph Hillier, and also discussed a recent op-ed by the company’s chief product officer, Yoel Zuckerberg.

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So, we asked Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners – whose coverage of the international gambling landscape is a must-read (to subscribe, drop an email to dan.waugh@reguluspartners.com) – for his thoughts on the brouhaha around the tax hike and its potential impact on regulated gambling and the companies servicing the industry within the UK and to other parts of the globe.

We also asked the long-time follower of the gaming industry about jurisdictions that are getting it right with their regulatory frameworks, and to weigh in on the regulated vs. black market debate around the world. 

Waugh also had some words of wisdom for the folks in charge of creating Alberta’s regulatory gaming regime, opening date still TBD.

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Magrum, a former professional poker player, was flipping houses in Austin, TX., four-plus years ago when his wife said her husband needed to find something in his professional career to be passionate about. That led to a phone call to Baxter and the beginning of creating a platform which Baxter calls “the Apple TV of sports betting”.

Magrum and Baxter talked about their plans for creating something unique in the business of betting, what’s behind the branding of their business, wanting to “be the glue between the consumer and the platforms” and how Golden Camel can connect with young adults immersed in the betting space.

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Hence, the maiden appearance of chief revenue officer Matt Prevost on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. Prevost talked about the reaction from customers to the launch earlier this year of Live from Vegas, a casino-floor studio inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that produces – with support from gaming industry supplier Playtech – live streaming interactive table games to its digital players. 

Prevost also talked about the popularity of the company’s Family Feud and The Price is Right products, the result of BetMGM acquiring the rights to the iconic television shows at the beginning of 2025. The conversation also got into sports wagering, including an early look at the Super Bowl and NFL betting so far this season, and, of course, the Toronto Blue Jays’ run to an epic World Series and the impact that had on BetMGM bettors in Ontario’s regulated marketplace.

We also asked the head revenue guy if BetMGM’s attitude towards prediction markets have changed since CEO Adam Greenblatt addressed them during an earnings call in October. 

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Instead, Davidson decided in August to get back into the policy game, this time as Vice President, Policy for Canadian public affairs firm Enterprise Canada. The former Director of Policy for the Premier’s Office was our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.

Your humble host tried to cover with the new father the gamut of topics in the business of sports betting and online gaming, Canadian style, including:

• Davidson’s decision, after speaking with some gaming-related businesses, to join Enterprise;
• The work done at iGO under the leadership of Otton and him to launch Ontario’s open private-sector market in April 2022, and the success story that is the Ontario model;
• Why the implementation of a centralized self-exclusion program, identified as a priority by operators, has taken so long (new iGO president and CEO Joseph Hiller told us on the GNCS at the beginning of the month he expects the program to be launched in the first half of 2026);
• Other priorities for iGO moving forward;
• His reaction to last week’s decision by the Court of Appeal for Ontario to go along with reviving pay-to-play daily fantasy contests and expanding online poker games (Davidson writes about the court ruling and liquidity in his latest post on The Policy Shop);
• What happens with regulated gaming beyond Ontario, including Alberta.

Davidson also explained the motivation for the creation of The Policy Shop on Substack, a weekly, well-reasoned deep dive into the issues that matter most to Canadians these days and – importantly - offering potential solutions.

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Hence, our rationale for bringing back on the Gaming News Canada Show, CGA president and CEO Paul Burns for a rapid-round episode of the podcast. Burns first addressed last week’s decisionby the Court of Appeal for Ontario with regards to expanding peer-to-peer play to international jurisdictions and the potential opportunities around the court’s ruling if there are no appeals filed over the next 20-something days. 

Next up was a segment on Bill S-211 – aka the National Framework on Sports Betting Advertising Act – passing first reading in the House of Commons. That led to Burns walking your humble host through the CGA’s recently released Code for Responsible Gaming Advertising, put together in collaboration with the association’s membership and with Ad Standards – Canada and scheduled to be put into effect at the beginning of the new year.

Burns also spoke about the CGA’s request for an exemption from the cash limits in Bill C-2, which awaits passage in the aforementioned House of Commons. The section of greatest concern to the association includes this clause:

136 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 77.‍4:

Offence — cash payments, donations or deposits of $10,000 or more

77.‍5 (1) Every person or entity that is engaged in a business, a profession or the solicitation of charitable financial donations from the public commits an offence if the person or entity accepts a cash payment, donation or deposit of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or in a prescribed series of related transactions that total $10,000 or more. 

The CGA’s head honcho also gave us a few thoughts about the recent sports betting/match-event fixing scandals in the NBA, UFC and Major League Baseball.

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Levy was his usual candid self in his latest conversation with Steve McAllister on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. The original founder of Headline Sports – which spawned theScore, Hardcore Sports Radio and theScore Bet – had lots to say about the news last week of ESPN and Penn Entertainment ending their 10-year agreement, and the end of ESPN Bet.

Levy, who sold Score Gaming and Media to Penn in the summer of 2021 and left the company in 2024 along with his sons Aubrey, Benjie and Noah, discussed the failures that led to the demise of ESPN Bet and the breakup of Penn and Barstool Sports in the summer of 2023 (we asked Levy if he had any interest in pulling a Dave Portnoy and reacquiring theScore – he answered). He also talked about Penn’s problems in the digital gaming business both in the U.S. and Canada and had some thoughts about the comments of Penn CEO Jay Snowden last week that the company may have interest in the retail casino business here in the Great White North.

The conversation also included the relationship between sports betting operators and sports media companies. And, some two weeks after a riveting World Series, Levy trumpeted theScore’s 10-year partnership deal with the Blue Jays that was announced on the same day Ontario’s open gambling market opened in April 2022.

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After launching a dashboard back in June to lend a hand to bettors of baseball, Rosenberg and Buskey will start this week to offer NHL data/analytics/metrics/numbers/etc. to lovers of puck. The two co-founders, who also do some moonlighting as co-hosts of the Dads Bet Baseball pod, talked about taking their passion for baseball and spreadsheets and turning it into a business. Buskey and Rosenberg also let us know they were ahead of the curve when it came to the 2025 edition of your Toronto Blue Jays and their wonderful run to their first World Series appearance since 1993.

We asked the co-owners about the delay in launching their hockey product a month into the NHL regular season, and how the information being provided on Handigraphs will lend a hand to bettors wishing to lay a loonie or two on prop bets. Speaking of which, Rosenberg – whose work in the gaming industry prior to becoming a branding, communications and marketing consultant included stops at The Action Network and Better Collective – provided some thoughts and layers on the push in some corners these days to ban prop betting in the regulated North American industry. The noise around that debate became louder over the weekend as Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz are both facing legal trouble amidst allegations of rigging pitches.

Finally, we asked both Buskey and Rosenberg if Blue Jay fans can expect another sensational summer and fall in 2026. 

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Hillier, who was introduced as Martha Otton’s success at the end of August and joined iGO in early September, talked about the process that led him to accept the position and leave the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario after 19 months as the AGCO’s chief strategy officer and corporate secretary. And how he can parlay his experience at the AGCO, and in the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General during the time the province’s private sector-driven igaming market was created around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also asked the new boss about the first weeks in his new office and his priorities, which we highlighted in the newsletter just days before Hillier’s start date – including the implementation of improved technology (especially with regards to data collection and reporting mechanisms), a long-awaited centralized self-exclusion program and improved protocols around anti-money laundering. 

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Covers gaming industry beat reporter Geoff Zochodne, Steve Ruddock of the Straight to the Point newsletter and Gaming News Canada newsletter editor Dave Briggs joined your humble host for a rather lengthy conversation. Much of the focus was on the ongoing investigation by the FBI into illegal sports betting and allegations of rigged poker games involving the mafia that have so far led to the arrests of Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player/assistant coach Damon Jones. The reactions across the sports and gambling industries, the media coverage, a bipartisan invitation from the U.S. Congress for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to come to D.C., and what regulators and operators could/should do were among the topics discussed.

The panel also spent time weighing in on the NHL’s new partnership agreement with prediction market firms Kalshi and Polymarket, which continue to butt heads with legal gaming operators and advocates, and regulators in the U.S. of A.

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Dimitrov, the former engineering lead for Bede who was named the head honcho for Betty’s Canadian operations in the fall of 2024, provided his perspective around the company’s decision in June to become an official online casino partner of the Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors. He also talked about the support Betty has received from the partnership team at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment leading up to the start of the NHL and NBA regular seasons and plans to exploit its first major partnership in the Ontario market. And Betty continues to evolve its marketing strategy, including the onboarding of The Parleh to provide support around video content.

A record August for the regulated gaming industry in Ontario prompted us to ask Dimitrov about the continued growth of online gaming, including Betty’s slots business. Betty, which has been uniquely transparent in providing numbers around its Ontario business, told us the operator has now surpassed 90,000 customers. 

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When the sale was completed and announced in January 2024, Brooks became FairPlay’s Chief Product Officer and co-founder Danijela Covic began the next chapter of his career in the U.S. In March, Brooks decided it was time to move on from FairPlay, so we’ve been wanting to catch up with one of the first people we met in the gaming industry.

Mission accomplished, as the Guelph entrepreneur and mom returned to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming for a chin wag on a number of topics, including:

- Her support and mentorship around startups these days, and what’s next for Brooks;

- Being immersed in artificial intelligence when Quarter4 was launched in 2019, how that technology has evolved, and building a company during the COVID-19 pandemic;

- The back story on being acquired by FairPlay and enjoying her time as CPO for the UK business;

- The ongoing innovation around sports data and the collaboration between companies doing business in the same space;

- Quarter4’s place as a member of the gaming ecosystem in the early days of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming market;

- Being a woman in the gambling industry;

- Lessons she's learned and is passing along to young(er) entrepreneurs.

And more.

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For the first time, Bede’s chief executive officer appeared on a podcast, joining Steve McAllister on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. Among the topics covered during their conversation:

- What motivated Cole-Johnson to get into the business of gaming in the 1990s and the path that led him to Bede.

- The focus of today’s Bede business, including its partnership with OLG.

- Bede’s shared industry with the major players across the industry in landing more business here in Canada.

- The company’s decision to recently join the North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries.

- The ongoing pursuit of new products, among them Bede’s recent launch of its Tournaments platform, and the continued search for more gamification offerings to customers.

- Cole-Johnson also answered our question about the balance of exploiting people power and the power of artificial intelligence in a highly competitive environment.

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Among the topics du jour:

• Burns’s appearance in New York last week at the Betting Gambling Forum during the latest Brain Economy Summit, which produced a framework for player protection globally.
• A postmortem from the SBC Summit Lisbon, including Burns’s participation in a “rise of alternative betting in North American” panel with Jared Beber, Alexandre Tomic, Paris Smith, Dino Stranomitis and moderator Brett Calapp.
• The mini-flurry of fines recently imposed by FINTRAC against CNE Casino, BCLC and SIGA, and the need for anti-money laundering laws to be updated in the true north strong and free to better oversee the current gambling industry landscape.
• More on the Canadian Gaming Association’s response to a recent op-ed in the Canadian Medical Association Journal about sports betting advertising and youth.
• The CGA’s head honcho also provided some thoughts around his conversation with iGaming Ontario’s incoming President/CEO Joseph Hillier.

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The Labour Day weekend was still in our rearview mirror (although we had to squint to see it. . . ) when Absolutebet Corp announced it had been given the green light by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to get its licence to thrill for iGaming Ontario and join the province’s highly competitive sports betting and online gaming market.

So, we invited the co-founder and director of Absolutebet, Chen Truman, to be our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada. Truman is no newcomer to the business of gaming, having spent almost 15 years at Playtech including four years as a product manager. The other co-founder of Absolutebet, Benjamin Truman, founded Media Troopers and Red Apple Tech Group.

Chen Truman covered an array of topics with us, including the lengthy registration process with the AGCO, the motivation to bring its mobile-first product to Ontario, the decision for Absolutebet to focus on igaming when it launches, and what it believes will differentiate its brand from the competition in perhaps the world’s most robust legal online gambling marketplace.

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The founder of FTN Network and a former financial advisor and owner of a California hair salon franchise, Adams had a chin wag with Steve McAllister about converting his passion for fantasy sports into creating FTN and StatRankings, and also joining Underdog Fantasy as a seed investor. Adams also discussed the ever-expanding roster of data startups in the sports industry, and the appetite for fans, bettors and fantasy players to have access to as many numbers as possible.

We also asked Adams about StatRankings’ partnership with DFS subscription service One Week Season, preparing to raise the curtain on his business for the start of the NFL regular season, and what’s to come.

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Litz, who’s spent time at the Canadian Football League head office, Woodbine Entertainment and True North Sports and Entertainment during his career in the sports industry, talked about her journey from law school at the University of Manitoba and legal work at Bell Media and Telus before moving into the intersecting worlds of digital business and sports. She answered the questions from host Steve McAllister about joining NSL founder and former Canadian national soccer team standout Diana Matheson, and the challenges and opportunities in getting the new league off the ground and the NSL’s place in the long-awaited growth of professional women’s sports in North America. That included a reference to the impact Caitlin Clark has had on the landscape just before Nike announced its new logo partnership with the WNBA superstar.

The NSL and Litz, as has been the case with major professional sports leagues since the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in the U.S., and the passing of Bill C-218 in Canada, are trying to seize the opportunities around the new world of legal sports betting – especially of the online variety. Litz talked about the NSL’s efforts to partner with data companies and sportsbooks with an eye on expanding engagement around the league, its six teams, and its players.

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We’ve been told by several sources that more operators are a coming to perhaps the most competitive regulated marketplace on the planet. And we know, because its intrepid leaders have said so publicly, that High Roller Technologies is poised to join the party.

Hence, our motivation to have gaming industry veterans Ben Clemes and Seth Young be our guests on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Clemes, who joined High Roller as chief executive officer in January 2024, is a former executive with the Gaming Innovation Group and is an investment and portfolio partner with HappyHour.io.

 Young, High Roller’s chief strategy officer, is the former chief innovation officer at PointsBet and currently sits on the board of directors at EQL Games, Kinectify and Kindbridge Behavioral Health. 

The pair, speaking with host Steve McAllister from Las Vegas, answered the host’s questions about High Roller’s road to regulation and its hopes of launching in Ontario before year’s end. Carlo Scappaticci, another experienced hand in the business of gaming, has been named managing director for High Roller’s Canadian operations. Clemes told McAllister the company will be putting additional staff in place here, and the company has already announced partnerships with Playtech and Kinectify for its Ontario business.

Both Clemes and Young spoke about the opportunity for success in a crowded market, and shared their thoughts on the Ontario model. That, of course, led to a conversation on the incoming Alberta market, which Young and Clemes are following. The popularity of igaming with Ontarians, carving out a niche in a busy market, and exploiting artificial intelligence also came up during our conversation.

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Our interview came on the heels of last month’s announcement the Las Vegas-based company had completed a successful fundraising round, with a helping hand from Vancouver entrepreneur Chris Kape and B.C. legal beagles Alon and Ron Segev. Bresler, who co-founded the company in January 2021with former DraftKings executive Elaine Milardo, talked about his decision to jump ship from the international fossils industry, and Oddit’s transformation from offering sports statistics and betting odds data to sportsbooks to its recent work on producing a direct-to-consumer app. 

Bresler also gave us some insight on the company’s plans for Canada, and also weighed in on the increasing popularity of women’s sports. 

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The Australian-born, long-time Albertan (and former member of the province’s netball team) is our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Madden talked about her departure from SportsGrid and what’s next for her. As is the case for all of our GNCS guests, Madden’s path to the gaming industry is of the more-than-interesting sort as she discussed her transition from the worlds of accounting and liquor imports to provide sports betting advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Madden told us about her daily routine, being a woman in the sports betting space, and how she’s dealt with the online abuse that’s sadly all-too common with personalities and athletes, as we noted in last week’s edition of the GNC newsletter involving tennis star Elina Svitolina at the recent National Bank Open tournament in Montreal. 

Finally, Madden offered some advice for anyone wanting to take the plunge into the sports media/betting business, and we wanted her thoughts on the 2025-26 Calgary Flames, too.

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• The latest report from iGaming Ontario, which reflects the ongoing popularity of online casino games with Ontarians playing on regulated websites/apps;
• Some thoughts and layers on the road to regulation in Alberta;
• The debate around in-play/prop bets, including proposals by legislators in New Jersey and Ohio to ban them;
• The latest on the U.S. gambling industry, including conversations and legislation around responsible gaming, the presence of prediction markets by Kalshi and others, taking action against illegal operators, hiking taxes on wagers, etc., etc. etc.
• The concern about the VIP programs offered by operators in the legal gambling environment.

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Well, we hadn’t until seeing an announcement in early June of a new partnership between Random State and Oakville-based Delta Bingo & Gaming. That happened mere weeks after the Swedish-based businessreceived its supplier’s licence from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. So, we invited Adam Fonsica to be our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show.

Fonsica, whom we first met in June 2024 at the Canadian Gaming Summit, talked us through his journey from playing poker to running an online lottery and bingo business. The one-time Miljonlotteriet executive also discussed Random State’s interest in Ontario and the rest of Canada, the Delta partnership, the impact of the digital world on lottery and bingo, and also provided his insight on regulated gambling in his homeland. 

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Hence, our motivation to get Saam Hafezi and Shawn Fluharty back on the Gaming News Canada Show this week. Fluharty, the head of government affairs for Play’n Go, has been busy in recent weeks with his appearance at the G7 Canada Brain Economy Summit’s forum on responsible gaming and gambling policy, and at an at-times contentious National Council of Legislators from Gaming States conference. That gathering prompted some fireworks with a legal beagle from Kalshi, as its presence in the betting gaming is setting off alarm bells and court battles in the U.S.

So, we asked Fluharty for his takeaways from the G7 forum in Calgary, and the NCLGS event. He was joined by Hafezi, the North American regional director for Play’n Go, to discuss the online games supplier’s ongoing business in Ontario, its partnership with Loto-Quebec, and their thoughts on the to-come open market in Alberta.

Given the focus on responsible gambling measures in both Canada and the U.S. these days, we also asked Hafezi and Fluharty how their company is contributing to the RG conversation.

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Now a Doctor of Law and Policy, and the Director of Gambling Policy at Northeastern University. Levant has been a loud voice on what he believes the regulated gaming industry is getting wrong when it comes to prevention of harm from sports wagering and online casino games. The good doctor, who was recently quoted in a Washington Post article on abuse of athletes on social media, and on CBS 60 Minutes about the impact of technology on problem gambling, was our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. 

He shared his story from that April night 11 years ago, the judge who gave him a second chance and his path to becoming a counselor, therapist and now leading the charge in developing a public health response to what he calls “the crisis created by the unprecedented expansion of the gambling industry”.

We asked Levant for his thoughts on the impact of in-play betting, easy access to online gaming, what he’d like to see happen with advertising around sports events, and his response to the bill introduced by Sen. Marty Deacon in the Canadian Senate to create a national framework on sports betting advertising. Levant also spoke about the efforts by operators, regulators and other companies/organizations in the regulated gaming industry to reduce gambling harm.

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Speaking of McCarthy, who at the beginning of the year succeeded Shelley White as the new boss of the Toronto-based RGC, she joined colleague Elaine MacDougall for a conversation with your humble host during the Canadian Gaming Summit in June. We asked the new CEO about her decision to leave the Rick Hansen Foundation to lead the Council, and her transition into the new role. McCarthy and MacDougall, who has a new title (Senior VP, Strategy and Programs) for their takeaways from the annual Discovery conference in May, the RGC’s involvement in the recent G7 Canada Brain Economy Summit sessions on responsible gaming and gambling policy, and the council’s ongoing RG efforts – especially in its education programs targeted at youth.

Please excuse any background noise or audio imperfections. This episode was recorded live on the show floor of the 2025 Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto. We appreciate your understanding and hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Before he could take his leave from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Canadian Gaming Association boss Paul Burns kindly lent your humble host a seat inside the CGA Members Lounge and agreed to give us his thoughts and layers for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show at the end of three days of meetings, panels, speeches from political types representing the provincial governments of both Alberta and Ontario, and other happenings during the summit.

Included were, as Dave Briggs wrote in last Friday’s newsletter, comments from the Attorney General of Ontario, Doug Downey, that the province will be “aggressively” going after operators who have given the one-finger salute to getting their licence, and news from the province’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming, Stan Cho, that his office will be reviewing the legal gambling industry – now three-plus years old.

Burns also weighed in on the comments from Alberta minister Dale Nally during the summit on the road to regulation in the western Canada province.

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Canadian Gaming Association senior executive Amanda Brewer returned to the show for a rapid round on what’s happening across the national gaming industry these days. That includes the slow road to an open market in Alberta, the wait at iGaming Ontario for a new boss and the launch of a centralized self-exclusion program, and lobbying efforts for open gambling regimes in British Columbia.

We also had a chat about this week’s summit, where Brewer will moderate “The urgent need to modernize Canada’s AML framework” panel Wednesday a.m. with Derek Ramm (Kinectify), Brian Terranova (FanDuel) and Heinen Hutchison Robitaille LLP partner Scott Hutchison.

Craig Cornforth of EPIC Global Solutions took time out from the SBC Summit Malta last week to make his maiden GNCS appearance. The former auto dealer told his poignant story around gambling addiction and the road to recovery that led him to join EPIC and its work in the prevention of gambling harm. Cornforth will be on stage with Alistair Facciol (Rhino Entertainment), Ryan McCarthy (BCLC), Covers journalist Geoff Zochodne and yours truly for a Thursday morning chin wag on “Regulation and responsibility: how the new politics affect player protection”.  

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The CGA established a committee to continue moving ahead with its efforts to update the AML rules and regulations. The chair of that committee, Derek Ramm, was our guest on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Ramm, the Global Head of Advisory Services for Kinectify, knows AML like Corey Perry knows how to torment opponents, with a resume that includes stops with Canada’s financial intelligence unit (FINTRAC), the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation (OLG), and the Bermuda Casino Gaming Commission. He will appear on “The urgent need to modernize Ontario’s AML framework” panel with moderator Amanda Brewer, FanDuel’s Brian Terranova and Scott Hutchison of Heinen Hutchison Robitaille LLC at next week’s Canadian Gaming Summit in the city below Aurora.

Along with discussing Kinectify’s role in identifying suspicious activity and working with stakeholders in Canada and the U.S., Ramm also answered our questions about the problems for operators in Ontario’s open market when it comes to AML. That included a hacking escapade in 2024 that made it impossible for operators to file suspicious transaction reports to FINTRAC, and hiccups by iGaming Ontario on data collection and technology since the opening of the market in April 2022.

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Sigel, the guy behind the @yyzsportsmedia account on X, the YYZ Sports Media website and the Bleave In The Pressrow Podcast, has been on top of the coverage around another disappointing playoff exit by the Toronto Maple Leafs and the end-of-season media sessions with MLSE head honcho Keith Pelley and Leafs GM Brad Treliving. He’s also watched closely the ongoing debate around Sportsnet’s hockey broadcasts and the subpar national televison ratings in the U.S. of A. during these Stanley Cup playoffs.

So, Sigel, who had longtime hockey broadcast executive and personality John Shannon on his podcast recently, was Steve McAllister’s guest for a conversation along with some back and forth on what’s ahead in this Summer of 2025, Maple Leafs Edition, the good, bad and ugly of Hockey Night in Canada and hockey broadcasts south of the border, and a debate about the media’s access to athletes in today’s professional sports world.

Also, because this program is one that’s focused on the business of sports wagering and igaming, there was a chin wag around the continued consternation in some corners when it comes to betting talk intersecting with sports talk. 

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Among the topics on the agenda for our chin wag with the business/regulation of gaming veteran:

• Recent reporting by Geoff Zochodne for Covers and Global Gaming News on sports betting and igaming operators making their pitch to the policymakers in British Columbia to bring an open gambling market to Canada’s most western province;
• The case for an open market in B.C. a la Ontario (and, over the next 12 months, Alberta), including the ongoing success by OLG in Ontario’s bigly competitive industry. (We recommend checking out Dave Briggs’s reporting in yesterday’s newsletter);
• The case for an open marketplace in La Belle Province (despite the ongoing efforts by the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, the chances appear to be slim to none and slim has disappeared to an unknown locale. . .);
• The official separation of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario by the Douglas Ford government. And, the creation of a new Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming with Stan Cho in the minister’s parking space.

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In the latest episode, RG is front and centre thanks to last week’s introduction of Real-Time Check-In by FanDuel – the latest tool/program launched by the Flutter Entertainment brand to lend a hand to its customers.

FanDuel, which at the end of last year introduced its My Spend tool and also agreed to a partnership with Kindbridge Behavioral Health, is leaning in further on the RG front with Real-Time Check-In. Senior commercial director Jill Watkins and Cory Fox, FD’s VP of public policy and sustainability, were our guests on the GNCS to walk us through Real-Time Check-In. We also asked Fox and Watkins about the use of artificial intelligence in the creation of the latest tool, the motivation for the operator’s increased investment in responsible gambling, and if there have been any lessons learned from operating in Ontario.

We also took a moment at the end of the podcast to congratulate Shelley White on her induction into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame during last week’s SBC Summit Americas in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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Last month, the Ottawa Senators introduced ToonieBet as the NHL club’s new official online casino partner. Last week, Soft2Bet made available to Ontario bettors its new sportsbook via the ToonieBet brand, having launched its online casino app a year ago.

While the North American gaming industry gathers this week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for the SBC Summit Americas, Soft2Bet product boss Yoel Zuckerberg connected from Cyprus with your humble host for the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Zuckerberg, who left Aspire Global in the fall of 2022 to become Soft2Bet’s chief product officer, talked about his 20 years in the gaming business going back to his time as a customer service representative. That experience, he told us, has been invaluable in working with the product team at Soft2Bet to address the needs and wishes of ToonieBet players.

Our conversation also included Soft2Bet’s decision to do business in Ontario, differentiating Tooniebet from the major brands in the province’s legal marketplace, some thoughts on the partnership with the Senators, its interest in becoming a player in Alberta’s new market, and what gets the creative juices flowing every day.

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Well, as OLG leadership has acknowledged over the past three-plus years, the new kids on the block forced the corporation to get its act together when it came to digital gaming. That race to keep up with the Joneses resulted in a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats scenario. Some of the credit for the growth of OLG’s gaming products can be attributed to the hiring in June 2022 of long-time Canadian and global branding/marketing executive Maxine Chapman as OLG’s vice president, brand and marketing officer. 

Chapman, who was honoured in February by Strategy Magazine as one of its Marketers of the Year, has deftly juggled OLG’s many brands and partnerships with advertising/marketing/PR agencies and organizations such as Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment around its Bring Home The Win masterbrand. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7AWLDq57s

The career of the brand/marketing maven, which began at OLG in the early 1990s has included tenures with Coca-Cola, the Vancouver and London Olympics, Cineplex and Manulife. We talked all about those stops – and her work across sports, entertainment and gaming - as Chapman made her maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show.

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Today, the company touts more than 39,000 customers and recently nailed down a $15 million credit facility to grow its business, including plans to launch in Alberta when the province is ready to raise the curtain on its open sports wagering and igaming industry. 

Dimitrov joined us from his office in Sofia, Bulgaria for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. In addition to sharing his story on his journey through the gaming industry and creating Betty with Park, Betty’s CEO also spoke about the company’s success in the highly-competitive Ontario industry, a customer base that is split evenly today between men and women, and Park’s recent comment about Betty becoming the “McDonald’s of icasino” with its plans to “transform Betty into a global powerhouse. . . through a decentralized franchise model”.

We also asked Dimitrov for his perspectives on addressing customers’ needs, what makes an engaging, successful product that is rewarded with loyal customers, and creating a positive work environment for employees in the post-pandemic world. 

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With apologies to the late James Stewart and Frank Capra, Mr. Burns went to Ottawa earlier this month for the Council of Europe Workshop on the Macolin Convention gathering, which included panel conversations featuring the CGA head honcho, Dave Phillips and Doug Hood from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and Sportradar’s integrity services lead Jim Brown weighing in on the province’s regulated sports betting industry’s work to combat match fixing. During our conversation, Burns told us that the collaboration between the AGCO, licensed sportsbooks, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders means “the regime is working”.

We also asked Burns for some thoughts and layers on three years of open, regulated sports wagering and igaming in Ontario and what's to come in Year 4, and the introduction of the iGaming Alberta Act by the ruling UCP party into the provincial legislature in the land of oil, gas and Connor McDavid. He also delivered an early look at what will take place during the June 17-19 Canadian Gaming Summit in the city below Caledon.

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Alas, we digress.

On the latest Gaming News Canada Show, The Parleh’s director of creative strategy and partnerships, Kevin Kennedy returned to the podcast for a chin wag about the evolution of content and storytelling in the legal business of online sports betting and igaming. Kennedy, one of the six partners in the creation of The Parleh (and, in the name of transparency, Gaming News Canada is Parleh Media Group owned) almost four years ago, has led the company’s work on behalf of OLG, ProLine, Sports Interaction (Entain), Party Casino (Entain), BetMGM, BET99, FanDuel, Betano, NEO.bet, Wildz (Rootz), 888 (Evoke), BetVictor and NorthStar Gaming, since Ontario’s open marketplace launched in April 2022. The Parleh has also collaborated with sports organizations such as the Canadian Elite Basketball League and, more recently, The Curling Group, and produces Sports Interaction segments featuring David Bastl on Amazon Prime Video’s NHL Coast to Coast broadcasts during the regular season.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIrbtydPifz/?igsh=aGhhaG96bWV5MXBh

We took Kennedy on a trip down memory lane to the spring/summer of 2021 when he oversaw a deep roster of content creators producing a plethora of video clips from their residences during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast forward to today, where we discussed the lessons learned along the way, the strategy for managing multiple operators in Ontario, the balance of sports betting and igaming storytelling – including the creation of “streeters” content that is now commonly used in the market – and the growth in online casino content.

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Dave Briggs, who mans the keyboard these days on the GNC newsletter. Robyn McNeil of Catena Media’s Bonus outlet and Covers senior news analyst Geoff Zochodne join the media roundtable. The three-year anniversary of Ontario’s open market sparked a good/bad/somewhat ugly-type of conversation, including the continued presence of 49 operators (and OLG), the (still) waiting for a centralized self-exclusion program to be delivered by iGaming Ontario through its partnership with IC360 and IXUp, the (still) waiting for Martha Otton’s replacement to lead iGO, and the ongoing cone of silence - most notably by the provincial government and the AGCO - around legal gambling in the province (McAllister also brought up the curious decision by the American Gaming Association to turn down an interview request for a CBS Sunday Morning feature into the explosion of online sports wagering in the U.S. of A. and gambling addiction). The panel also weighed in on the horse racing industry’s attempts to expand wagering through the Ontario open market, whither consolidation and the financial results delivered by the legal industry.

McNeil, Zochodne and Briggs also got into the efforts by the Danielle Smith government in Alberta to get approval on Bill 48 to establish its own open sports betting and igaming marketplace. And the all-journo podcast included a segment on the stories du jour, including the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s look into limiting, and the ongoing legal wrangling involving Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com around “sports event trading”.

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We’ve been giving it the old college try to get the elder Levy back on the podcast, and we finally succeeded this week as Ontario’s open, legal sports betting and igaming industry recognizes its third anniversary. Our conversation included a trip down memory lane before single-event sports betting was given legal blessing by the federal government, and your humble host read a quote from Levy in a May 2021 Toronto Star column about legal online gaming coming to the true north, strong and free,

Levy spoke about theScore’s success in Ontario, both pre- and post-PENN ownership, the company’s partnerships with the Toronto Blue Jays and Golf Canada, and some overall thoughts about the province’s legal gaming market, advertising and marketing strategies, the ongoing efforts by the industry around responsible gaming and the challenges/opportunities ahead in Ontario, Alberta and beyond.

He also (somewhat) answered our question about what’s next.

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Just before the Ontario market’s third anniversary, your humble host recorded interviews with Bet99 head honcho Jared Beber, TRM Public Affairs president Troy Ross and igaming executive Amanda Brewer. Beber, Ross and Brewer answered our questions about the evolution of the province’s regulated industry – including changes made to the rules around advertising and the use of athletes - and the role of both the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario in creating one of the largest legal gambling jurisdictions on the planet. The trio also talked about the industry’s responsible gaming programs, and the province’s success in driving out offshore operators. 

And, of course, the conversations included the to-come launch of open, regulated gambling in Alberta and the potential for other Canadian provinces to follow Ontario’s lead.

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Allec, who’s today in charge of OddsLogic and WagerTalk Media, made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBC Plc. Host Steve McAllister took the sports betting industry veteran back to his first gig in the industry writing tickets and then becoming a sportsbook manager. He discussed his creation of data business SportsOptions and an eventual merger with Don Best Sports that brought him together with Friend of GNC Benjie Cherniak.

Allec also got into the shifting sands that is the business of sports data, and what OddsLogic customers are seeking in today’s world of live/in-play wagering. We also couldn’t help ourselves on devoting a segment of the show to the sports media landscape, and Allec’s thoughts on the integration of sports betting content into sports broadcasts and other content given his WagerTalk Media business.

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Hence, our motivation for some time now to get the former Chair of the Canadian Gaming Association into the virtual studio for an appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc. Not only did Hincer accept our invite, but appeared on the podcast the same week he was appointed the new Chief Legal Officer at gaming industry behemoth GeoComply.

Hincer, who left his position as partner and chair of the gaming practice at Fogler, Rubinoff LLP to join GeoComply, let us in on the process that led to his latest position in the business of sports betting and gaming.

We also spoke with the one-time senior executive at Hard Rock International about the shifting regulated gambling space, and working with Paul Burns to lead the CGA through a busy three-year tenure as Chair. We also discussed the potential for competitive regulated gambling regimes not only in Alberta, but across the rest of the country.

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OK, perhaps we exaggerate a little bit. However, the co-founders of Defy The Odds, formed to lend a helping hand to other startups, aren’t your stereotypical startup trio. Sue Schneider, Paris Smith and Kelly Kehn have a combined 75-years plus in the gambling industry and have individually been among the leading crusaders for women in a business that has historically been heavily male skewed.

The three gaming leaders were Steve McAllister’s guests on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc. They provided McAllister with the back story on the creation of Defy The Odds at the end of 2024, and the new company’s recently announced partnerships with Thundr,QueenBHive, and Let’s Fantasy Game.

Schneider, a frequent guest on the GNCS, Smith and Kehn also spoke about their mentors during the early days in the industry, and the need to continue pushing the envelope on DEI initiatives.

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Well, the four-team tournament which culminated with Connor McDavid’s overtime goal to lift Canada over Team USA in the championship game was a resounding success. The inaugural global hockey event delivered two nail-biting, tough-as-nails contests between the North American rivals, full houses in Montreal and Boston, record television audiences on both sides of the border, and record activity among bettors with legal online sportsbooks.

For more on the impact of the 4 Nations, we were joined on the Gaming News Canada Show, presented by GBG Plc. First, Rob Corte, Vice-President of Sportsnet and NHL Production at Rogers, shared his insights. Then, we brought back DraftKings’ long-time Head of Sportsbook, Johnny Avello, and John Ewing, PR Manager – Insights for BetMGM. Both Avello and Ewing spoke with host Steve McAllister about the tournament’s success and its impact on the operations of DraftKings and BetMGM with their respective hockey offerings. They also discussed the potential implications for the Stanley Cup playoffs and the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

We also asked the pair about the upcoming spring sports schedule, including March Madness and the Masters. And we had a chinwag with Avello about the PGA Tour’s recent Waste Management Open and the current state of men’s golf.

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The UK-based identify verification company’s Director of Gaming, Rebekah Jackson, returned to the Gaming News Canada Show for a conversation with host Steve McAllister on GBG’s investment in our home and native land. Jackson gave us the goods on the company’s success in Ontario, and on its preparations to support the incoming regulated gambling industry in Alberta. 

We also asked Jackson, who’s been with GBG since joining the business as a graduate management executive in the spring of 2023, about its Win Canada Market Share initiative and its recent work on behalf of Atlantic Lottery, and its entry into Brazil’s new legal online gaming marketplace.

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Since then, Gaming News Canada – has produced almost 150 newsletters and some 600 audio/visual shows to deliver the latest industry news and insights to our still-growing list of subscribers. This morning, we thank everyone who has had a hand in the success of our neighbourhood media outlet, and there are far too many to mention by name in this space.

To help us celebrate Anniversaire Numero Quatre, Parleh Media Group co-founder and CE0 (and the person giving your humble correspondent a friendly but firm push to create Gaming News Canada) Mark Silver helped us take a walk down memory lane with a special focus on the relationship between media and the regulated gambling industry in Ontario, and the rest of Canada.

Then, long-time Friend of Gaming News Canada Amanda Brewer and journalist Dave Briggs joined us for their respective thoughts and layers on the past four years. That included a discussion on the Ontario market, which celebrates its third anniversary at the beginning of April and so far continues to wait for the consolidation many of us predicted back in April 2022. Brewer also provided an update and some advice for the folks in charge of creating an expanded legal sports betting and gaming business in Alberta.

Both Briggs and Brewer weighed in on Briggs’s interview last week with PointsBet Canada boss Scotty Vanderwel about the potential impact of Donald Trump’s tariff war on the Ontario industry. We also asked Brewer about the Canadian Lottery Coalition-supported legal action taken by the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation against offshore betting site Bodog.

Finally, we asked our two guests to take out their crystal balls to gaze into the future, and specifically asked Briggs about Canada’s horse racing industry and the opportunities/challenges around betting. 

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Your humble host recently finished Superintelligence: Is Canada Ready for AI? published by The Logic and was inspired to delve deeper into the world of AI as it relates to the business of gaming and sports business. Enter Seth Schorr, the CEO of Fifth Street Gaming and founding partner of GMA Consulting.

Schorr made his maiden appearance on the podcast and detailed the use of AI in both his professional and personal life these days, and the many ways it’s being exploited across the industry he’s been a part of for more than 25 years since his early days at The Mirage and Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas.

The Fifth Street Gaming boss also got into the evolution of AI globally in the gambling business- in responsible gaming programs, content and on-site at bricks-and-mortar casinos - the efficiencies it provides and the ongoing need for human resources to support its use. Schorr also gave a shoutout to both ChatGPT and Gamma, which uses AI to produce presentations and decks.

We also asked Schorr to look into his crystal ball at how AI will continue to evolve.

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Well, Bourgeois and Redlick listened and the result is the return of the five-module program, which will begin April 3 and run through early May. 

The two gambling industry veterans were Steve McAllister’s guest on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc. Bourgeois, who has more than 25 years of experience in the gaming sector and Redlick of Sharp Edge Picks fame, summarized the curriculum for the 2025 program – which reflects the evolving legal gambling industry in Ontario and the rest of Canada. They also told our humble host the potential beneficiaries of participating in the program.

The pair also weighed in on the evolution – and the wins and losses - of Ontario’s regulated marketplace since launching in April 2022, and provided some thoughts on the launch of an expanded legal sector in Alberta.

And, oh yes, we asked Redlick for his thoughts on Super Bowl LIX; the Philadelphia Eagles’ surprising dismantling of the Kansas City Chiefs delivered a banner evening to sportsbooks (as reported yesterday by Patrick Everson for Fox Sports).

To register for the Osgoode Certificate in Gambling Law and for more information, please visit osgoodepd.ca.

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Those wagers will be a blend of moneylines, over-unders, player props and those novelty wagers around the coin toss, national anthem, Kendrick Lamar’s halftime gala, Taylor-Travis and more. Among the operators preparing the smorgasbord of betting options is Ontario licensee FanDuel, so we welcomed back to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG the operator’s Director of Content Activation and Brand, Alannah Della Vedova, and Vice President of Marketing Tom Burdakin.

Host Steve McAllister asked Della Vedova and Burdakin not only about the Super Bowl – including its latest Kick of Destiny campaign featuring the brothers Manning, and its plans around its Bell Media partnership for Sunday’s game – but some other topics including:

- The continued appetite by Ontario customers for online casino and other games in the province’s regulated gambling marketplace, and FanDuel’s response;

- FanDuel’s investment in women’s sports, including the partnership it announced in December with the Professional Women’s Hockey League; 

- The recent announcement by ESPN that the Worldwide Leader was launching a responsible gambling campaign featuring anchor Elle Duncan, and the potential for TSN and Sportsnet to follow suit;

- FanDuel’s efforts around responsible gambling, including the launch of its My Spend customer dashboard at the end of last year.

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But. . . when WagerWire co-founder Travis Geiger and gambling startups insider Jesse Learmonth (the man behind the Betting Startups podcast, which your humble host at The Parleh co-founder/CEO Mark Silver appeared way back in December 2021) got together with an idea to recognize the efforts of new businesses in the business of gambling, we thought “OK, tell us more.” So, Geiger and Learmonth were our guests on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc. to walk us through their raison d’etre for The Starties, which will make their debut at next month’s NEXT.io Summit New York.

Learmonth and Geiger presented the back story behind the awards, which has a presenting sponsor in Eberg Capital and additional backing from Defy the Odds, Optimove Ignite+ and Sportradar Futures Hub. By the by, nominations are now being accepted for the various categories. They also discussed the current state of real-money gaming startups, including the opportunities and challenges for new businesses.

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Brewer shared her thoughts on the move of ICE to the Spanish city from London, and some of the many conversations she had with members of the Canadian Gaming Association and stakeholders from other parts of sports betting and gaming universe. Not surprisingly, Brewer was frequently asked last week what in the world of Connor McDavid is going on with regulated gambling in the province of Alberta.

The industry veteran also responded to our question about a recent report from FINTRAC Canada that online gambling sites are being used to launder proceeds from fentanyl dealing and production (Dave Briggs covered this in the Wednesday newsletter). Brewer pointed us to a LinkedIn post from another gambling biz veteran, Kinectify executive Derek Ramm, with his take on the alert from FINTRAC.

Our conversation with Brewer also included the latest market performance report from iGaming Ontario and the organization’s move to providing monthly reports; the status of a centralized self-exclusion program in Ontari-ari-ari-o; the potential impact of a provincial election on the industry; and Briggs’s reporting last week that fake social media ads promoting phony online casino products on Meta and other social media platforms.

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So, when sports media industry confreres Steve McAllister and Jason Sukrahj reconnected on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc, there was some talk about the current state of media, sporting style. But the conversation eventually shifted to SportsGrid shifting more than a middling amount of attention to online casino and other games. That was punctuated in the final quarter of 2024 when the U.S.-based multimedia content and technology company brought into the fold casino content personality Brian Christopher – who along with his life and BC Ventures partner Marco Bianchi were our guests on the podcast during last summer’s Canadian Gaming Summit – and golf and social media celebutante Paige Spirnac.

Sukrahj, the general manager, audience and Canada at SportGrid and sports industry veteran, gave us the goods on the company’s investment in Christopher and Spirnac, whose Gimme Props show will launch next month during Super Bowl week. 

And, of course, the chat included a look at the ever-changing attempts to integrate sports betting content into traditional sports media networks and programming, and the growth of SportsGrid in the streaming universe.

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Paul Burns, the president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, returned to the podcast for a rapid-round conversation including the impact of the current turbulence around the Canadian political system on the gambling industry. The proroguing of Parliament by the Liberal Party will likely result in the demise of a couple of bills, and most likely push back once again attempts to modernize anti-money laundering laws. The current ones, said Burns, don’t address the creation of online gambling across the country. 

Burns also answered our questions about the federal/provincial dynamics around sports betting and gaming in our home and native land. The CGA head honcho also helped us tee up next week’s ICE Barcelona conference, where he will meet with association members and global industry stakeholders in the first major gambling rendezvous of the new year. 

Ariane Gauthier, the new spokesperson for the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, made her maiden GNCS appearance to shine a brighter light on the op-ed she keyboarded in Le Journal de Montreal last week to make the coalition’s case for a regulated regime in La Belle Province. We asked Gauthier about the latest efforts by the coalition to meet with officials in the Francois Legault government at a time when it's dealing with major issues at home and the threat of harmful tariffs being imposed by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump when he takes office for the second time.

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So, as the four-down football league’s postseason got underway with wild card weekend, Gaming News Canada Show regular Phill Gray – who led trading operations at Sports Interaction for more than two decades – rejoined the podcast. Gray and your humble host dug a little deeper into the reasons behind the bettors taking advantage of sportsbooks, and also looked ahead at the challenges and opportunities for the betting populace in the race to next month’s Super Bowl.

The 2024 U.S. presidential election and Justin Trudeau’s pending departure as leader of the Liberal Party here in our home and native land has reinvigorated wagering on politics, including in Ontario’s regulated gambling industry (as Dave Briggs reported in Friday’s newsletter). We asked Gray for his thoughts on that topic, too.

Finally, we took a quick peek at stories to watch in the sports betting space in 2025, including the odds of regulated gambling coming to Alberta, the crypto/betting story, and the potential impact around the growing popularity of women’s sports on sportsbook operators.

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Late last year, the founder/CEO of Sportradar, Carsten Koerl referred to the “global revolution” happening around sports analytics. The company’s senior vice-president of fan engagement, Patrick Mostboeck joined us from Austria for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.

Mostboeck weighed in on several topics including:

• Sportradar’s ongoing growth with its betting technology and solutions, and sports content, technology and services sectors.
• The company’s expanding relationship with the NBA to increase fan engagement globally through their exclusive data partnership.
• Riffing off an op-ed of sorts by Koerl on the Sportradar website back in October.
• The company’s evolving support of legal sportsbook operators in North America, and other parts of the world. That includes, on the eve of the start of the Australian Open, the introduction of micro markets for ATP matches.
• And, Sportradar’s partnerships with the NHL, men’s professional tennis tour (ATP) and NASCAR.

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That was made clear on the first Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc. of 2025. Brian Cooper, the long-time Canadian sports sponsorship guru and current frequent board member – including chair of MKTG Canada, and Canada Basketball, and a member of the board of directors at NorthStar Gaming – and The Parleh co-founder/CEO Mark Silver were our guests for a lookahead edition of the podcast and covering a cornucopia of topics, including:

- What’s next for sports media in our home and native land from the reduction of journalists from newsrooms, to the continuing growth of podcasts, the increasing influence of “content creators” to the future of sports talk radio.

- Twenty-five years ago, then-Toronto Star sports media beat writer Chris Zelkovich reported on interest by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to acquire CTV SportsNet. With Rogers, owners today of Sportsnet, now controlling majority ownership of MLSE (one of the leading sports and entertainment entities on the planet, and with long-time sports broadcast executives Keith Pelley and Phil King now helping steer the good ship MLS and E), what does that mean for the future of Canadian sports and sports media?

- Speaking of MLSE, what’s next for Larry Tanenbaum, who continues to be a large presence on the Canadian sports scene and is bringing a WNBA franchise to Toronto?

- The partnership announcement on New Year’s Eve between the MLB Milwaukee Brewers and FanDuel Sports Network and court proceedings between MLB Players Inc., and DraftKings and bet365 highlight the ongoing investment by sportsbook operators in sports media and content.

- And, the still-evolving fragmentation of sports broadcast rights, including Netflix’s hugely successful partnership with the NFL on Christmas Day.

To cap off the podcast, host Steve McAllister asked Cooper and Silver for stories to watch in 2025 and received a couple of Spockian-eyebrow responses from the two veteran sports executives.

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Mitch Davidson, the chief of staff for iGaming Ontario, joined us to provide some thoughts on the best numbers yet from the regulated business of sports wagering and online gaming in iGO’s latest quarterly market performance report. Amanda Brewer and Phill Gray also hopped into that conversation, including a lookahead to 2024.

Parleh Media Group co-founder/CEO Mark Silver and Eric Herd – founder of A2Z Ventures and the former head honcho at The Post Game – weighed in on the departure of Erika Ayers Badans as CEO of Barstool Sports and The Action Network grand poobah Patrick Keane. We also asked Herd and Silver to analyze the potential acquisition of bankruptcy-bound Diamond Sports Group by Amazon.

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Catherine Jarmain, the director of industry programs and monitoring for iGaming Ontario, and IC360 president Eric Frank joined the podcast to discuss the project to build on the existing player protections in Ontario – a program considered to be overdue by operators and others following the province’s legal gambling industry.

Both Jarmain and Frank also paid tribute to Martha Otton, a week after iGO announced that its executive director would be retiring at the end of the year. As Dave Briggs reported last week in the Gaming News Canada newsletter presented by GBG Plc, Otton’s departure is being delayed until March while her successor is found.

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In October, “the revolutionary and inclusive sports media brand” announced it had reached one million subscribers across its various and sundry platforms. It’s most likely not a coincidence that the milestone was reached in a year highlighted by the overwhelming impact of basketball superstar Caitlin Clark on both the NCAA women’s hoops game, and the WNBA, along with a dominant performance by Canadian(including swimmer Summer McIntosh, who was a no-brainer choice to receive the Northern Star Award as the country’s athlete of the year) and American women at the Paris Olympics.

Ellen Hyslop, the co-founder and head of content for The GIST, made her maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc to talk about the company’s evolution since its creation in 2017. She discussed with host Steve McAllister the “Caitlin Clark effect” - including Clark’s recent selection as TIME Magazine’s athlete of the year – the arrival of a North American women’s professional hockey league, and support of women’s sports from brands and corporations. Our conversation also included the appetite “GISTers” have for the NFL and other major professional sports.

Hyslop spoke with McAllister in July 2021 for a Toronto Star column about sports and sports betting, so we revisited that topic and the partnerships The GIST have had with sportsbook operators. Finally, she gave us a (tiny) glimpse into what GIST subscribers can expect in 2025.

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That bit of prescience prompted Mark Phillip to create Are You Watching This?! which today provides real-time data for professional and U.S. college sports around the world. In 2019, after the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) to legalize expanded sports betting in the U.S. of A., Phillip founded MetaBet to deliver sports wagering technology to media companies.

On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc, Phillip spoke with host Steve McAllister about the growth of both companies – and also his I Can’t Find The Game! brand – and both the challenges and opportunities in an ever-expanding media rights world that this season added NHL games on Prime Video in Canada, and speculation on what the NHL broadcasting landscape will look like in our home and native land when the Rogers deal expires in 2026.

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All of the ruckus south of the border around sports betting and online gaming, including the angst around problem gambling, sports betting advertising – which is also happening in our home and native land - daily fantasy sports, and sweepstakes has attracted the attention of elected officials, traditional media, mental health advocates and others. So, we welcomed back Chris Grove to lend his voice of reason to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.

Grove, a co-founder of Acies Investments and partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, provided a plethora of measured insight on the current brouhaha, including:

· The interest in the industry from politicians and mainstream journalists should elicit more than a raised-eyebrow reaction from the industry;

· Some suggestions for industry stakeholders in responding to the scrutiny;

· The good work being done by the American Gaming Association – which recently added athlete harassment to its campaign around betting responsibly - to inform and educate folks on regulated gambling

· The industry needing to catch its collective breath on issues such as expanding legal online casino across the U.S.

Grove, the founder of Legal Sports Reports, discussed the challenges that journalists face in newsrooms and editorial departments that have shrunk in the U.S. and Canada. He also talked about the “Google effect” on gambling affiliates that led companies such as Catena Media to lay off journalists this fall (Dustin Gouker, in his Closing Line newsletter, created a spreadsheets of journalists available for hire). And he spoke about the potential impact of a second Donald Trump administration on the industry.

Finally, we asked the industry veteran about the current appetite for funding startups and his thoughts on the M&A landscape in 2024.

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The founder and CEO of Rivalry, which cut its teeth at inception on esports wagering back in 2017, answered our questions about the still-growing engagement by fans and bettors around Fortnite, CounterStrike, Dota2, Valorant, etc. That conversation reminded us of our first encounter with Salz back in 2022 just after the opening of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming market, when he compared Rivalry with Wealthsimple and Robinhood when referring to its customer base.

So, that led us to get Salz’s thoughts on the recent rumbling about Robinhood contemplating a deeper dive into wagering in the aftermath of the U.S. election. He also addressed the growing popularity of crypto as the currency of choice among gamblers, including among the offshore casino industry, and Rivalry’s focus on accelerating its position as a “global, crypto-native operator”. (Salz reminded us that the AGCO’s rules around deposits in Ontario’s legal gambling business forbid the use of crypto).

Rivalry has undergone a major transformation in 2024 and Salz expanded on the company’s release of its latest financial results at the end of November. Finally, he gave us some parting thoughts about Ontario emerging as a good story for the company over the past year.

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While the snow was flying outside of Gaming News Canada HQ on the shores of Lake Huron earlier this week, your humble host fired up the virtual studio to welcome Dave Briggs, the former managing editor at Catena Editor and editor interim of the Gaming News Canada newsletter, for an unplugged/unvarnished/unfiltered episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.

Instead of opening up our notepads, Briggs and yours truly conversed on a number of topics about the business of sports betting and gaming, including:

• Briggs’s tour of duty in journalism, the horse racing industry, and his time at Catena as editor-in-chief of Play Ontario/Play Canada, PlayPennsylvania, PlayIllinois and PlayMichigan; 
• A fact sheet released this week by the World Health Organization on gambling, and the global impact of advertising and marketing on problem gambling;
• The layoffs involving journalists by gambling affiliates in 2024;
• The opportunities with the breakup of iGaming Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and the call (once again) for both parties to be more transparent and also be voices for the regulated gaming industry in the province;
• Coverage of the industry by traditional media outlets since the Ontario regulated marketplace opened its doors in April 2022; 
• What the province’s licensed operators – and the regulators - have done well, and what they could do better; 
• And the motivation behind Briggs’s Fresh Waves podcast which features music you won’t hear on Top 40 radio.

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Among the interested observers in the courthouse proceedings was Canadian Gaming Association senior advisor Amanda Brewer, who made her return to the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc (welcome back to our presenting sponsor). Brewer provided her take on what she saw and heard last week and the scenarios that could play out once the panel reaches a decision.

We also asked Brewer for her thoughts on the continued debate around sports betting advertising in our home and native land, what’s news in Alberta (the province’s Minister of Red Tape Reduction last week took aim at Bodog), and iGaming Ontario’s search for a president and chief executive officer, who’s expected to move into Martha Otton’s chair some time in the first quarter of 2025.

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McCarthy, who joined BCLC in August 2022, spoke about the recognition by the WLA, and his three key takeaways from the latest New Horizons conference. Highlighted was a keynote address by Dr. Shawn DuBravac on Gambling on the Safer Side: A Different Approach to Creating Competitive Advantage. He also dug into the continued changes around responsible gaming involving not only BCLC, but other provincial lottery and gaming corporations, operators, regulators and, of course, players. For BCLC, that includes its highly acclaimed GameSense initiative which is also used by operators including MGM Resorts and BetMGM. 

Our conversation not surprisingly included a segment on artificial intelligence. We also asked McCarthy about the collaboration between player health advocates, revenue teams and others within BCLC to maintain balance between growing the business and prioritizing protecting customers. 

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This fall, New Jersey-based online sports wagering business Sporttrade announced the launch of its app in Virginia, the fifth U.S. state where the seven-year-old company is operating. Chief executive officer Alex Kane founded Sporttrade in 2017, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).

Kane made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show and told the story of the paralegal assistant who got into the sports betting and technology industry. He also explained the differences between the Sporttrade apps and other online sportsbooks, and the company’s deliberate strategy in building its business.

Kane also offered his thoughts on the existing regulated industry in Ontario, and the conversations he’s had with Jay Welbourn, the senior manager of technology and compliance for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, about the province’s acclaimed competitive and legal gaming industry. And, of course, we prodded him for some thoughts and layers on the state of regulated gambling in the U.S. – included discussion in some states right now about adjusting the tax rates on legal gambling operators – and the soon-to-come regulated business in Alberta.

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On the eve of next week’s Kioti National in St. John’s, the Grand Slam of Curling getting together with ALT Sports Data on a multi-layered partnership highlighted by growth and innovation around making the sport more wagering-friendly and also supporting the CGOS’ efforts to grow curling internationally.

"Our partnership with ALT Sports Data will open up a new world of engagement for curling fans; where real-time insights, advanced analytics, and seamless betting experiences come together to help elevate the sport,” Nic Sulsky, the co-founder and CEO of The Curling Group, which acquired the series from Sportsnet in April, said in a media dispatch. “As the popularity of curling continues to rise internationally, our collaboration with ALT Sports Data will allow us to enhance the fan experience while unlocking new growth opportunities within untapped markets.”

Sulsky and Michael Jordan, the co-founder and head of product for ALT Sports Data, joined us on the podcast to dig a little deeper into the details of the partnership – which has a betting element. The California-based business has a rather lengthy list of partnerships with non-traditional sports organizations, including the World Surf League, the Disc Golf Pro Tour and Power Slap while providing data to many of the biggest brands in sports betting. The deal with the CGOS includes ALT Sports Data becoming the exclusive global partner of data for sports betting worldwide.

We spoke with Sulsky, who left his post as chief commercial officer of PointsBet Canada to co-found The Curling Group, about the changes that have already taken place under the GCOS’s new ownership, the growth of the series’ streaming audience, and the appetite by the curlers and their coaches for advanced analytics.

Sulsky, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgins Lymphoma in 2009, will be on The Rock next week and will don his road gear once again to run and raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society’s Curl for Cancer campaign.

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· An editorial by The Globe and Mail calling on the Justin Trudeau government to pass Bill S-269 before our elected federal officials head home for the holidays:

· An interview by Matt Galloway of CBC’s The Current with a problem gambler in the aftermath of a study released by the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling;

· A St. Albert Gazette piece on the relationship between igaming, advertising and problem gambling;

· And just yesterday, this “Is the $11 billion online sportsbook bubble about to burst?” tome from the keyboard of David Hill for Rolling Stone.

At the same time, the Canadian Gaming Association just made public research it commissioned North American advertising intelligence company MediaRadar to conduct on advertising by operators in Ontario’s regulated market. The research shows a decrease in the amount of advertising spend by operators of online sports betting and gaming products since the province’s market opened its doors in April 2022.

Paul Burns, the CGA’s president and CEO, returned to the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss the latest research, and also respond to the latest coverage by the Globe and CBC (the CGA also posted a response on LinkedIn to the Globe editorial). Burns also addressed the efforts the industry have made around responsible gambling while yet again emphasizing the operators’ multi-layered actions to keep children from accessing their products. He also spoke about the challenges in front of advocates of Bill S-269 to have a national framework for sports betting advertising to take effect.

He also spoke about the recent Royal Assent given by the Douglas Ford government to the iGaming Ontario Act, which will separate iGO from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. We also asked Burns for his thoughts on what background and skill set the iGO board of directors and its recruiting firm should be seeking in the president and CEO who will replace Martha Otton when the woman responsible for leading the charge to opening the Ontario market in the spring of 2022 retires at year’s end.

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From Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke, in his prepared statements in a call with analysts when the data/technology/broadcast giants put forth its Q3 2024 financials on Tuesday: “In-play wagering now represents 30% of total NFL handle—up from roughly 25% the prior season—representing a meaningful step in the right direction, which we always expected.” 

Phill Gray, the former long-time head trader for Sports Interaction and regular guest on the Gaming News Canada Show, returned to the podcast to deliver his thoughts and layers on the expanded in-play and same game parlay betting products, how sportsbooks are creating those markets in real time and the shifting role of traders with the operators. Gray also talked about the three types of bettors today, the acknowledgment by books that the customers did pretty darn well in October, and he offered his take on a new report by Bettometrics analyzing suspension times between top operators for Week 8 of the U.S. college football season, and Week 9 games in the National Football League. 

Gray also weighed in on the ongoing debate around limiting, and the overwhelming popularity beyond the United States for wagering on the recent U.S. elections.

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Among the plethora of panels that will take place beginning Sunday (Nov. 10) is a Developments in Sports Betting discussion with Parleh Media Group CEO/co-founder Mark Silver holding the moderator’s mic. Silver will be joined by Tom Burdakin, the vice president of marketing, Canada, for FanDuel; Daniel Caufield, the head of business development and partnerships at Woodbine Entertainment; Tyler Puley, the director of marketing communications and brand experience at OLG; and Michael Zitney, the director of brand and content for Entain Group. 

Ahead of the conference and the Swifties invasion, your humble host made the trip to Toronto this week for a pre-PrimeTime podcast with the aforementioned panelists and Silver. Among the topics covered:

• Reaction to Tuesday’s announcement that the Senate has sent Bill S-269, aka the National Framework on Advertising for Sports Betting Act, to the House of Commons;
• The evolving strategies around advertising, marketing and partnerships since Ontario unlocked the door to regulated sports betting and online gaming in the spring of 2022. That included a discussion around the ongoing efforts to integrate sports betting into sports broadcasts and the opportunities that lie ahead in a changing sports rights, broadcasts and streaming landscape.
• Reaction to the financial results from iGaming Ontario’slatest market performance reportand OLG’s 2023-24 annual report. 
• The challenges and opportunities ahead for Ontario’s regulated operators, OLG and Woodbine.
• And, of course, we asked Zitney and Burdakin for their thoughts on the road to regulation in Alberta.

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Straight to the Point publisher/editor Steve Ruddock returned to the Gaming News Canada Show. Ruddock walked us through his experiences in the affiliates industry over the past 15 years, and discussed with your humble host the decision by Catena Media and Better Collective to let go journalists covering the industry and what’s next in the affiliate space. That also led to a lengthy discussion around coverage of the sports betting and gaming industry since the overturning of PASPA by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.

The wild and crazy presidential election in the U.S. has attracted the interest of 16 sportsbooks – including OLG - in Ontario’s regulated marketplace. We asked Ruddock about the participation by Robinhood, Kalshi and Polymarket in predicting the Harris-Trump battle, and the potential impact the next U.S. federal government will have on the country’s legal gambling landscape.

Last but not least, the debate continues about the competition/collaboration of retail and online gambling, so we asked our guest for his two cents on the topic.

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Shelley White, who is leaving the RGC after an eight-year tenure as its chief executive officer at the end of the year, and VP, marketing and communications Elaine McDougall joined us for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. White and McDougall dug a little deeper into the latest annual report, and spoke with us about:

• The ongoing efforts of the council and other stakeholders in the sports betting and igaming industry in Canada and globally to inform and educate people on gambling safely, and the use of artificial intelligence to help amplify messaging in the future;
• The RGC’s new partnership with Maple Leaf and Sports Entertainment, which debuted last Saturday during the Toronto Maple Leafs’ home opener at Scotiabank Arena;
• The council’s participation in the creation of a regulated gaming marketplace in Alberta;
• White’s testimony in front of the Senate transport and communications committee earlier this month on sports betting advertising;
• The continuing momentum when it comes to women landing executive suite positions across the industry.

White also let us know that the RGC is expected to announce her success by the end of November, and gave us some thoughts on her eight-year run. McDougall also spoke about the impact White has had on the council in bringing a much-appreciated cultural shift to the organization and leading its evolution as a business.

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Sports Interaction has a segment in the first hour of the Thursday NHL Coast to Coast broadcast. To learn more about the Homegrown Bet of the Night segment, veteran sports broadcaster David Bastl – now SIA’s chief betting officer – was our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show. Bastl provided more details on the SIA integration (with a helping hand on the production end from Parleh Media Group) into the Amazon Prime hockey broadcasts – Thursday nights deliver a Red Zone-like experience for NHL fans – and revisited his first picks from opening night. 

We also asked Bastl about the ongoing evolution of professional sports leagues, rightsholders and sports wagering operators when it comes to integrating betting information and insight into a game broadcast – including The Locker Room show produced by Homestand and available on the Sports Interaction app. He also spoke about his background in media and betting, including his work on the Inside the Lines NFL betting show, and The Mike Richards Show in the early years of TSN Radio.

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Tom Nightingale of Canadian Gaming Business reported Monday that more time is needed for the provincial government in the land of the Oilers and Flames to meet with various stakeholders with potential skin in the game of a legal gambling marketplace. For further context on this story, Jessica Welman – the editor-in-chief of both SBC Americas and Canadian Gaming Business – made her return to the Gaming News Canada Show.

Welman joined GNCS host Steve McAllister before getting on yet another plane. . . this time to Las Vegas for this week’s Global Gaming Expo, to provide her insight on a few topics, including:

·      Some key takeaways from the recent SBC conference in Lisbon

·      Teeing up G2E this week

·      The buzz around sweepstakes in the U.S. of A. these days, including her recent conversation with Novig co-founder/CEO Jacob Fortinsky

·      The latest on efforts in the Canadian Senate to pass a bill which would create a framework for sports betting advertising in our home and native land

·      And other matters pertaining to legal gambling in the U.S., including what’s happening (or not) in California, Texas and Florida.

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Burns returned to the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss his appearance in Ottawa, and the continued evolution of advertising in Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming marketplace. From Tom Nightingale’s reporting in Canadian Gaming Business:

Burns had argued in his opening statement that he doesn’t believe S-269 is necessary, as most of what the bill aims to do is already being done. In particular, he pointed to Ontario’s advertising restrictions and stipulations around responsible gaming messaging, noting that anecdotally, Ontario has seen a far higher uptake of RG messaging and practical tools than operators are legally required to offer.

“There’s been a lot of emotional discussion about gaming advertising over the last couple of years because people have seen more of it,” noted Burns. “But there’s also been some absence of facts and data and understanding.”

The CGA president/CEO also provided an update on the road to regulation in Alberta, including Minister Dale Nally’s pending appearance on a panel Wednesday alongside Burns, AGCO chief Dr. Karin Schnarr and iGaming Ontario executive director Martha Otton (you can expect the soon-to-retire iGO ED will deliver the latest quarterly results on the Ontario industry) at this week’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.

We also asked Burns for his thoughts on the state of regulated gambling today across the true north, strong and free.

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Paul Adams, the director of marketing operations for BetMGM, made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show alongside the company’s PR/data insights manager John Ewing for a chin wag about the operator’s increasing investment in igaming via the launch of Lightning Storm and WOF Casino, and exclusive slots based on movies and TV Shows such as The Godfather and Charlie’s Angels. Adams also got into the partnership announced this summer between BetMGM and gaming casino content creator Brian Christopher.

Ewing returned to the podcast for a conversation on the wave of wagering around the early weeks of the National Football League season, and how its customers in Ontario engaging in four-down football. We also asked Ewing about the impact Shohei Ohtani’s season for the ages has had on the business of betting, and the potential excitement around a Dodgers (Ohtani)-Yankees (Aaron Judge) World Series.

Finally, Adams confirmed that BetMGM is among the operators paying close attention to plans for launching a regulated sports betting and online gaming marketplace in Alberta (we recommend our recent GNCS episode with Amanda Brewer and Phill Gray for more on the Alberta situation).

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Speaking of which, Brewer and fellow consultant Phill Gray returned to the GNCS for a roundtable that was heavy on talk about the pending regulated market in Alberta. We tackled the rumblings about an opening date , the potential tax rate and other costs of doing business in the western Canada province, a consultative process which so far has been different than what operators experienced in the lead-up to the opening of regulated sports wagering and iGaming in Ontari-ari-ari-o, and the reaction from the Canadian Gaming Association to the results of a report by an Ottawa-based think tank earlier this month with the recommendation that Alberta shouldn’t follow Ontario’s lead in creating regulated gambling beyond what’s currently offered by Alberta Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis.

(Ed’s Note: We reached out to the communications folks at the office of Minister Dale Nally requesting an update on the province’s plans. After recording this episode, we received a response including: “We’d be happy to give an update, however due to a busy schedule we don’t have much availability until the first to second week in October”. We expect the minister will be in Lisbon and will participate in a Thursday roundtable on Canada hosted by Alon Segev of Segev LLP. Also, ICYMI, Ron Segev was our guest on the podcast a few weeks ago to provide his take on Alberta.)

Both Brewer and Gray weighed in on the proposal by two U.S. senators to create a federal Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet (SAFE) Act. Gray also addressed our questions into a recent roundtable organized by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission into operators placing limits on sports bettors (Steve Ruddock’s thoughts in his Straight to the Point newsletter is a good read).

Finally, our two panelists also weighed in on the pending retirement of IGaming Ontario executive director Martha Otton, and the challenges facing her successor.

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From the reporting done by Soshnick and Badenausen of the U.S.-based sports business publication:

Rogers already owned 37.5% of MLSE, and now puts a total valuation of Rogers’ ownership of the entity at $9.4 billion Canadian dollars. Rogers also owns the Toronto Blue Jays, who are worth $2.27 billion, according to Sportico. Larry Tanenbaum owns the remaining 25% stake in MLSE, which also includes the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts.

Jonah Sigel, the go-to person for the latest news on the Canadian sports media industry (you can find him on X at @yyzsportsmedia), and Parleh Media Group co-founder Mark Silver hopped on their laptops for a special edition of the Gaming News Canada Show. Among the topics discussed:

• The impact of today’s announcement on the sports media business in our home and native land, including the expiration of the NHL’s $5.2 billion, 12-year broadcasting contract with Rogers at the end of the 2025-26 season;
• Bell Media securing content rights for the Maple Leafs and Raptors for the next two decades;
• The potential impact of the announcement on Rogers and the leaders – led by Edward Rogers - of MLSE and its franchises, and the Blue Jays;
•  The relevance of the sports and entertainment behemoth having a face for the organization a la George Steinbrenner, Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban (which got us talking about Bruce Garrioch’s feature on Ottawa Senators owner Michael Andlauer in today’s Ottawa Citizen);
• And of course, some thoughts from a regulated gambling industry respective given the dollars spent on media and partnerships with pro sports organizations by legal operators in Ontario and provincial lottery and gaming corporations across the country.

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Today, the Los Angeles-based business has established a place in the sports wagering and daily fantasy sports trading marketplace while using social and media platforms to build a community of sports aficionados. The co-founders of WagerWire, Zach Doctor, Travis Geiger and Guy Dotan were our guests on the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss the company’s ongoing growth, including this summer’s announcement of establishing fantasy and media verticals to “operate sports products and other types of gaming independently of sports betting”.

We also asked the trio about the opportunities in Ontario’s regulated gambling marketplace, and the soon-to-come regulated industry in Alberta, their newish foray into horse racing. Dotan also lent us his expertise on the continuing challenges with new technologies.

And, our conversation included some NFL talk in a week when the four-down gridiron giant kicked off its regular season, and the American Gaming Association announcedthat an unprecedented $35 billion (Amarican dollars) will be wagered on the league this season. 

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Brett Hanson, BCLC’s Manager – Retail Sports was our latest guest on the Gaming News Canada Show to dig into the deets of the new ProLine, which went live just before the start of the NFL regular season. Hanson, who previously worked for offshore sportsbooks before joining the provincial lottery corporation in April 2018, talked about the race to launch ProLine before the start of the four-down football campaign and the challenges and opportunities around creating a new and improved sportsbook product for retail customers. That includes some new features and an expanded offering of wagers for Lions, Canucks, Seahawks and other favourite teams of sports fans in Canada’s most-western province. 

We also asked Hanson about changing the habits of ProLine customers to move into the digital world, and on the opportunity to educate those customers about responsible gambling with the new sportsbook.

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So, the recent announcement that the British Columbia-based law firm was establishing some roots in Calgary ahead of the launch of regulated gambling in Alberta was the catalyst to have Segev join us on the Gaming News Canada Show. Among the topics discussed:

· We’ve never heard the story of Segev LLP having a gaming component to its legal practice, so we asked;

· While it’s expected the Alberta model will have similarities to Ontario’s regulated gambling marketplace, Segev says there are unique qualities in the western Canada province that will come into play;

· A state-of-the-Ontario-market discussion, including with regards to the current Ontario Superior Court case brought forth by the provincial Attorney General’s office on liquidity;

· Why it’s not a slam dunk for B.C. to follow suit with an open, legal marketplace

We also asked Segev for his thoughts on what’s expected to be a rather robust fall.

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Cryan, who landed at Sportradar after stints with social media behemoths TikTok and Meta, and is still settling into his new role, dug into the evolving use of short-form videos for betting brands and acquiring new customers. He also spoke about the integration of Sportradar’s data and technology into the video content of operators in the business of sports wagering and online gaming. 

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Robert Urwin, the co-founder and managing director of the sports odds intelligence company, made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show to dig deeper into the company’s data around betting on the 2023-24 NBA season. Included in the company’s analysis as FanDuel leaving an estimated $1.45 billion (Amarican bucks) in handle during the pro hoops campaign.

Urwin, who’s worked in the gaming industry for more than two decades – including tenures with Unibet, Betfair and Ladbrokes before co-founding Bettormetrics almost three years ago – spoke about his current company’s place in the sports betting biz and further addressed suspension of wagers during live sporting events. 

He also got into the evolving use of artificial intelligence in delivering data around sports and sports betting, as we enter a busy fall sports schedule with the return of the NFL, NBA and NHL regular seasons, MLB playoffs, and more.

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Frank explained the creation of the partnership between IC360 and its ProhiBet betting integrity product, and IXUP, which designed and delivered and operates Australia’s national self-exclusion register (BetStop). Jarmain spoke about both the lengthy process that led to the August 1 announcement, and the coming together of Ontario’s regulated operators and OLG in supporting the development of a centralized program for Canada’s only regulated industry.

We also asked Frank about the IC360/IXUP partnership extending into other jurisdictions, including the anticipated opening of a regulated gambling industry in Alberta. Finally, both Jarmain and Frank paid tribute to Martha Otton, after iGO announced last week that its executive director is retiring at the end of the year.

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Geoff Zochodne, the veteran gaming industry beat reporter for Covers, took a break from listening to hearings, transcribing interviews and tapping the keyboard to return as our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Among the many topics we covered over a lengthy conversation:

- What is motivating DraftKings to, in Zochodne’s words, “plan to hit winning players with a ‘gaming tax surcharge’?

- What make sense in terms of timing for regulated sports wagering and online gaming to arrive in Alberta and what will that marketplace look like?

- Jeff Marek’s departure from Sportsnet appears to have involved both the NHL and Nevada Gaming Control Board.

- And what’s the dilio with regards to sports betting regulators and limiting?

Zochodne also provided his perspective on the Ontario Court of Appeal case considering the expansion of online poker and daily fantasy sports, consolidation of the U.S. sports betting industry (and why it hasn’t happened in Ontario), and more.

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If not, you’re politely invited to listen in on our conversation with Full Pull Entertainment founder and CEO Chase Richardson on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Richardson, whom we first met while he was on a networking/business development mission at last year’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, shared his journey of leaving college hoops to parlay (see what we did?) his farming family’s generational participation in truck and tractor pulling to build a business and expand engagement around the sport into the gaming sector with the launch of Full Pull Picks. 

Richardson discussed with us the lessons learned from coaching and recruiting in the highly competitive U.S. college basketball environment into operating a startup business. And we asked the former NCAA player how he recruited Friend of Gaming News Canada Benjie Cherniak to join Full Pull as an advisor and investor. The Full Pull head honcho also talked about his desire to bring Full Pull Picks to the Ontario and Alberta (when regulated gambling comes to the western Canada province) markets, given the appetite for tractor and truck pulling throughout rural communities in the two provinces.

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The latest session, which took place July 6, included legal representation for the Attorney General of Ontario, the Attorney General of British Columbia, members of the Canadian Lottery Coalition, the Canadian Gaming Association, Flutter Entertainment (owners of PokerStars and FanDuel), NSUS Group Inc. and NSUS Limited (proprietors of GGPoker), and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke.

For their respective perspectives on the court proceedings, the Gaming News Canada Show welcomed back CGA president/CEO Paul Burns and Jack Tadman, the managing partner of GME Law. Burns walked us through the CGA’s role in supporting the province’s request and provided some history around cross/jurisdiction/border online gaming and daily fantasy sports. Tadman added a layer or two, too, to that topic and spoke about what intrigues him about the case and the participants.

Burns had some thoughts last month’s Canadian Gaming Summit and welcomed Kiron Interactive as the association’s newest member. Both Burns and Tadman addressed the ever-evolving nature of regulated sports betting and gaming, and we also asked Tadman for his reaction to the ongoing push by Senator Marty Deacon to pass Bill S-269, National Framework on Advertising for Sports Betting Act. 

From the Dept. of In Case You Missed It, iGaming Ontario released Wednesdayits FY 2024-25 Q1 Market Performance Report.

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Brewer, who spoke on the Alberta: A new gold rush? panel at last month's summit, and Gray delved into the details of what regulated gambling will look like in the western Canada province, the influence Ontario's existing industry will have on the Alberta model and which operators will be heading west when that market hangs the Open For Business shingle.

We also asked the resident GNC experts for their respective perspectives on the latest around the conversation about gambling advertising, and a recent callby the Canada Centre on Substance Use and Addiction for the introduction of a national strategy to address gambling-related harms in our home and native land.

Finally, Gray and Brewer gave their reaction to the news last week that Betway is pulling its sports betting product out of the U.S. of A. (but continuing to operate both sports wagering and igaming in Ontari-ari-ari-o).

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Saam Hafezi, the company’s North American business lead, and head of government affairs Shawn Fluharty took time away from their version of Meetings Madness during the summit to join us on the Gaming News Canada Show. Hafezi walked us through Play’n GO’s strategy for growing business in Canada and addressed the need for speed and delivering what the customers want in a highly competitive sector of the gambling industry. 

Fluharty, who serves as the president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, explained the challenges operators face in navigating the different sets of rules created by gambling regulators in U.S. states and Ontario.

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Christopher and Bianchi, the co-founders of Palm Springs-based BC Ventures delivered some details on how the BetMGM partnership came to fruition, including Christopher’s to-come appearances for the giant igaming brand on YouTube, Facebook and Kick. We also asked Christopher about his success in building a following through BCSlots, FlipTheSwitch.com, BCSlots Cruises and Rudies Fan Club.

Bianchi, a former colleague of your humble GNCS host a decade ago with Yahoo, weighed in on the company’s growth and Christopher’s connectivity with online gaming players and audiences. The two men also emphasized the commitment to responsible gaming, which Christopher will reinforce in the partnership with BetMGM.

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Otton, who was put in charge of creating the conduct-and-manage subsidiary of AGCO in February 2021, also made time to join us on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. We solicited some additional thoughts to her words at the conference about the iGO-commissioned report conducted by Deloitte around economic contribution from Year 2 of a regulated industry which today includes almost 50 operators and 80 gambling websites/apps.

Our interview occurred minutes after Alberta minister Dale Nally announced the western Canadian province will follow Ontario’s lead in opening a regulated gaming marketplace, so we asked Otton for her reaction. The iGO boss also addressed the ongoing evolution of legal gambling in Ontario and her still-young organization’s focus on improving its use of technology and data.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MXqb1a3Apg

One of those very learned people is Benjie Cherniak, who returned to the Gaming News Canada Show after a busy couple of months piling up the frequent flier miles, including stops for NEXT.io conferences in New York and Malta. The native Montrealer, an investor and advisor to a cornucopia of companies in the gaming space (including his investment in the proprietors of GNC) was appointed to the board of directors of Kambi Group last month.

We asked Cherniak to chime in on several topics in the industry these days, including the happenings around mergers and acquisitions (to wit: DraftKings acquiring Jackpocket and Sports IQ Analytics and rumblings it will also bring Simplebet into the DK family; FanDuel’s acquisition of BeyondPlay; and the sale of Waterloo-based Quarter4 to FairPlay Sports Media). He also provided some sundry thoughts on the discussions and debates around the still-newish regulated gambling marketplaces in Ontario, and states across the U.S. of A., the creation of media and marketing content for sportsbook and igaming operators, and the ongoing innovation happening in the business.

Cherniak also had some advice for first-timers attending the Canadian Gaming Summit, which gets underway today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

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Messenger’s experiences and expertise motivated him in the fall of October 2022 to create the Association of Certified Gaming Compliance Specialists, which today provides training to the casino and igaming sector in Canada and around the rest of the world. In March 2023, the ACGCS and Dalhousie University announced the first-of-its-kind course in igaming compliance in our home and native land.

At next week’s Canadian Gaming Summit, Messenger will moderate a panel on Identifying and combating human trafficking in land-based casinos. He joined us on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to talk about his experiences and his motivation for launching an association which provides online courses to people around the globe. Messenger also got into the steps that have been taken to stop human trafficking casinos and gave us some advice on how to identify that someone may be in trouble.

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A conversation between Steves – Salz and McAllister – begins with the head honcho of the online gambling company laying out the path to last week’s announcement of Rivalry entering the world of cryptocurrency, including the NUTZ interim points program. 

Salz answered our questions about the company’s latest financials, also released last week, and the company’s strategy for the remainder of 2024. There was also a discussion on what’s happening in the esports universe, and Salz’s observations about Ontario’s regulated gambling market moving into Year 3.

The expansion of regulated gambling beyond Ontario in our home and native land also prompted a couple of interesting responses from Salz, who will participate in the Next-Gen gamification: engaging Millennials and GenZ panel at the upcoming Canadian Gaming Summit.

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Scott Woodgate, the company’s Vice President in charge of Canada, and PR Manager – Data Insights John Ewing appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show to provide thoughts and metrics on the increase in betting on women’s sports, and the rise in female bettors. Ewing dug into BetMGM’s announcement earlier this year there was a 51-per-cent increase on women betting on the Super Bowl – thanks in some part to the Taylor Swift effect – compared with the 2023 NFL championship game. Ewing answered our question about the habits of female bettors.

Both Ewing and Woodgate also got into the impact of increased attention around women’s sports on BetMGM’s product, including customers being invested in Clark during NCAA March Madness and in her rookie WNBA season with the Indiana Fever. “We reflect the interest from bettors,” said Ewing, who, with Woodgate, spoke about the similarities between sportsbooks and media when it comes to women's sports.

Woodgate provided his perspective on the current state of regulated gambling in Ontario, and the prospect of Alberta becoming the next Canadian province to open its door to legal operators. Alberta’s iGaming Evolution is among the panels at the June 18-20 Canadian Gaming Summit, with Patrick Harrison guiding a conversation between TRM Public Affairs President, Entain senior executive Martin Lycka, and BetMGM Vice President, Strategy & Development Witek Wachinski.

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Catherine Meade, the Vice President of Community, Sustainability and Social Responsibility has been with OLG for more than eight years, and in May was named North America Leader of the Year during the SBC Summit North America. Tyjondah Kerr will celebrate 25 years with OLG later this year, and is currently the corp’s Director, Social Responsibility.

Meade and Kerr both spoke about OLG’s commitment to DEI, beginning with an embracing of the organization’s five-year plan in February 2019 and continuing to build on that strategy at a time when companies are pulling back on their DEI efforts. Meade talked about the work she’s done in various roles over her career, beginning as an equity officer at Acadia University and the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society in the 1990s, to her position of Director, Capital Projects for the PanAm/Parapan Games group in Toronto less than a decade ago, and as a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ sports community.

We asked Kerr about her early years as a young black woman in the business of gambling – telling the story of her frustration at being overlooked for promotions - and the (slow) evolution of the industry as one that’s more inclusive with work still to be done. Our two guests also weighed in on the tidal wave these days around women’s sports.

Meade and Kerr will both be speaking at the June 18-20 Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto. 

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The rapid-fire roundtable featuring the two gambling industry veterans opened with a discussion on the recent ruling by the Ontario Superior Court against the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke that the gaming model operated by iGaming Ontario is of the valid variety, and its potential impact on the future on other regulated provinces across Canada. 

Brewer, who will participate in a couple of panels at next month's Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, and Gray also weighed in on the agenda that's been created by SBC in collaboration with the Canadian Gaming Association for the three-day conference inside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

The conversation turned to south of the border where U.S. states such as Illinois are proposing tax hikes to regulated sports betting operators, and the recent snub by operators toward the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to discuss placing betting limitations. We also asked our pair of panelists for their thoughts on the rising wave around women's sports, including an exciting final series in the Professional Women's Hockey League, the launch of the new WNBA season with rookie sensation Caitlin Clark, and this week's announcement about the incoming Northern Super League in Canada.

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Our conversation touched on the collaboration between operators and companies like Mkodo, which includes its Geo Locs service for igaming operators. Godfree, who will participate in the Modern Approaches to Traditional Verticals: Digitization Comes for Lottery, Bingo, and Horses panel at next month’s Canadian Gaming Summit, also provided his thoughts on the evolution of machine learning/artificial intelligence.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G2ysd1G6HSc?si=khj82YOv6NPC4SeW

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Mike Morreale, the CEBL’s commissioner, and deputy commissioner John Lashway appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show to set the table for the 10-team loop’s Summer of 2024. Morreale and Lashway walked GNCS host Steve McAllister through the league’s efforts to educate players, coaches, officials and other stakeholders on its sports betting policy and collaborating with league partners Genius Sports, SIS and BetVictor in the fight against match-fixing.

The podcast also includes a discussion on the CEBL’s partnership with BetVictor, which this season includes a weekly betting show to be produced by Homestand Sports.

And, Morreale and Lashway both weighed in on the league’s growth from six teams in its 2019 inaugural season to 10 teams with plans for expansion in 2025, the development of players, coaches and officials who have graduated to the National Basketball Association, and the CEBL becoming an attractive place for players looking to climb the pro hoops ladder.

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He also spoke about the flurry of M&A activity so far in 2024, including the acquisition of Quarter4 by FairPlay Sports Media Group, and what’s motivating those transactions, and what investors are looking for when it comes to providing funding to companies in the sports, gaming and entertainment spaces. And, what excites him about the innovation and products appearing in the world of sports wagering and online gaming these days.

Danzig, who will be speaking at next month’s Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, also addressed the opportunities north of the border. 

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Mark Silver, the PMG chief executive officer who brought together the company’s six founding partners in early 2021 and Homestand’s content/brand grand poobah Kevin Kennedy appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show for some reminiscing and a lookahead at the opportunities in the always-changing world of betting, gaming and media. Silver spoke about his latest experience in a startup business, and the need for continuous experimenting and shifting strategies to meet the needs of some 10 clients which Parleh has served in Ontario’s two-year-old regulated marketplace. Kennedy was asked for his thoughts on the merger of sports betting and sports media – including The Locker Room program that’s available on the Sports Interaction app - the continuous search for unique content in a market that remains crowded despite the challenges faced by traditional media, and the content opportunities around Ontario’s robust online gaming business. 

Both PMG leaders gave their own taps of the hockey twig, Silver to investors and other supporters of the company, and Kennedy to the group of established and just-starting content creators who are finding a different path these days to telling stories in the world of sports.

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Matthew Holt, the chief executive officer of the new company, and IC360 president Eric Frank appeared on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. The main drivers of the merger gave us the back story on how U.S. Integrity and Odds On Compliance came together since launching ProhiBet at the beginning of 2023, and the new business’s integration of integrity and compliance products. Holt explained the creation of an education and training team led by former EPIC Global Solutions employees Mark Potter and Dan Trolaro while both Holt and Frank got into the fast-moving evolution of artificial intelligence in supporting its integrity and compliance services. The interview also included a discussion on IC360’s plans for the Canadian market, including the hiring of Sebastian Jedrzejewski from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario last year and U.S. Integrity’s collaboration with the AGCO in the days leading up to the opening of the province’s regulated gambling marketplace.

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Gambling industry veteran Sue Schneider, the VP of Growth and Strategy for SBC’s North American business, was our guest on this edition of the Gaming News Canada Show. Schneider, who was inducted into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame during the 2022 North America summit, teed up next week’s rendezvous in Secaucus, provided some helpful hints to first-time attendees and gave her perspective on the evolution of the SBC events, and the industry itself over a quarter of a century. We also asked what attendees of the Canadian Gaming Summit can expect next month in SBC’s second year of co-hosting the conference.

One of the most-passionate advocates for women working in the industry, Schneider also spoke about the progress that’s been made, including the creation of companies such as Ontario-regulated online gaming business Betty, and Betting Ladies, and the need to continue those efforts. She also weighed in on the current state of the gambling industry in the U.S.

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Hill, who spent 11 years with OLG, these days represents a collaboration of the Alberta Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, BCLC, Loto-Québec, the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation, and the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority. On the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, he addressed the coalition’s advocacy for legal gambling across Canada and the work that’s been done in trying to limit gambling advertising by regulated operators in Ontario within the province’s borders. And, we asked him about the apparent road to regulation that’s happening in Alberta.

The former journalist and Toronto Blue Jays employee also teed up a panel discussion at the Canadian Gaming Summit in June which is scheduled to include crown corporation leaders Kandice Machado (AGLC), Pat Davis (BCLC), Patrick Daigle (ALC) and Jean-Francois Bergeron (Loto-Québec). Hill also provided some thoughts on the current state of the gambling industry in North America, including a decline in casino visitors in some U.S. states.

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On this episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, Paysafe executive Greg Kirstein was our guest. Kirstein, who joined Paysafe in the summer of 2013 and is currently the general manager, iGaming for the company’s North American business, discussed the business’s work with the lottery and gaming corporations in Ontario and Quebec, and regulated operators in Ontari-ari-ari-o. He also got into the expanding inventory of online payment products.

And, of course, we asked the Montreal-based Kirstein about the potential for expanding regulated gambling into other provinces across our home and native land.

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Doug Smith, who’s been covering the Toronto Raptors since Day 1 for the Toronto Star, appeared on this episode of the Gaming News Canada Show with Legal Sports Report gambling biz journalist (and former NBA beat writer) Mike Mazzeo. Smith spoke about the conversations he’s had with Raptors players about the new world of online sports wagering, and the ties that bind leagues and betting operators while Mazzeo weighed in on the measures being taken by all stakeholders in the fight against match-fixing and other potential betting scandals in pro sports. 

Daniel Umfleet, the founder and CEO of Kindbridge Behavioral Health, then joined the show from Southampton, England to weigh in on the Porter ban. Kindbridge’s partners include NASCAR, Entain, BetMGM, DraftKings, U.S. Integrity and Sportradar, and Umfleet answered our questions about the roles companies in different sectors of the sports wagering landscape play in preventing situations such as Porter’s, and the pressures faced by today’s athletes – current, former and those who are trying to prepare for life after playing. He also got into the evolution of responsible gambling programs in the U.S., which traditionally have been based on bricks-and-mortar sportsbooks and casinos to deal with the still-newish world of online gambling.

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Burns provided a plethora of perspectives on a number of topics, including the two-year anniversary of regulated gambling in Ontari-ari-ari-o and what’s next, what may lie ahead for regulated sports betting and igaming in other Canadian provinces, the work that’s been done in our home and native land on responsible gambling, and the role that Canada plays internationally in the gambling space. We also asked Burns about preparations between the CGA and SBC for the annual Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, taking place June 18-20.

And, there was also some girls/women’s hockey talk as the CGA’s head honcho walks away from the bench after a lengthy coaching tenure in the Leaside Wildcats organization.

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Since then, Doura-Schawohl has gone on to become a leading voice on responsible gambling and problem gambling in senior leadership roles with the National Council on Problem Gambling, and EPIC Risk Management. In her current role as CEO of Doura-Schawohl Consulting LLC, she’s working with stakeholders across the regulated gambling industry to address the growing concern around problem gambling.

On the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, Doura-Schawohl discussed the impact that the fast-moving mobile/online gambling industry in the U.S. is having on people, the influence of gambling advertising and famous brand ambassadors on players, concerns about increased gambling activity among college students, the need for more research into problem gambling, and the responsibility that stakeholders across the industry have to make gambling safer.

Doura-Schawohl, who doesn't shy away from advocating for more tangible action on RG, also provided more than a few words of praise to RG efforts in Ontario and across the rest of Canada by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario – when creating the province’s regulated sports betting and igaming marketplace – the Responsible Gambling Council and BCLC with its GameSense self-exclusion program that is being used by operators in the U.S.

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Kelland was our special guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to answer our enquiries about BF’s journey through the worlds of startups, social media, sports media/content, fantasy sports, free-to-play gaming, and sports wagering. Kelland also explained the company’s success in attracting millions of hoops aficionados from Down Under, in the U.S., Canada and other parts of the planet. And, of course, we asked about the Caitlin Clark effect on the growing popularity of women’s basketball with the betting public.

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Scott Vanderwel, the chief executive officer of PointsBet Canada, returned to the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss those topics, while also discussing the recent closing of the acquisition of PointsBet USA by Fanatics, PointsBet Canada’s newish partnership with Strive Gaming to enhance its online gaming offering, the impact of University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark on the business of sports betting, and the successes and lessons learned by operators, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario is a highly competitive marketplace.

Vanderwel was also joined by Nic Sulsky for a conversation on the breaking news this morning (Tuesday) that Sulsky is leaving his chief commercial officer position with PointsBet Canada to become a partner and CEO of the newly formed The Curling Group. Sportsnet announced this morning that The Curling Group will take over ownership and operations of the 12-year-old Grand Slam of Curling series. Sulsky told us the story of how The Curling Group was created, the opportunities for continuing to grow the sport globally, PointsBet Canada’s early . . . er. . . gamble on curling, and he also provided his thoughts on the industry he’s leaving.

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Also, the state of New York just had its second most successful week in sports betting handle from legal operators since the launch of its regulated marketplace in January 2022. And the regulated sports betting business in North Carolina has launched with a bang riding the March Madness wave.

The latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show brings together a media roundtable with SBC Americas editor-in-chief Jessica Welman, the managing editor of Catena Media’s Play Canada, Play Michigan and Play Pennsylvania websites, Dave Briggs, and Geoff Zochodne, the gambling industry beat writer for Covers.com. The trio of journalists joined Steve McAllister to discuss the good, bad and ugly that is the current state of gambling across North America.

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The startups veteran was our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, joining us from the Big Apple. Park spoke about the creation of Betty, why Ontario is the company’s first foray into regulated igaming, its success so far competing against the big players in the province, his laser focus on the future opportunities in other Canadian provinces, and the focus on women as customers, and employees.

Park also provided some words of wisdom for startups in the gambling industry.

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Kennedy spoke about the attraction – and evolution - of live events for sports fans post-COVID pandemic, and the ongoing efforts to inform and entertain fans and fans who wager on sporting events.

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McLaren senior vice-president Robert Copeland was our special guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to answer our questions about the white paper. Copeland addressed the challenges for the Canadian sport system to combat match fixing, including no mention of competition manipulation in the Criminal Code of Canada, and our home and native land so far not being a participant in the Macolin Convention. 

Copeland also got into the need for further education of athletes and other sport stakeholders around sports betting - especially in an Olympic year with the Summer Games coming to Paris- and the need for funding to support education and other programs. He also offered a couple of thoughts on the Shohei Ohtani controversy.

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The start of March Madness and the NCAA women’s and men’s basketball tournaments also sparked a discussion on the decision by sports betting regulators in some U.S. states to place a ban on prop wagers involving college athletes.

With the two-year anniversary of Ontario’s competitive sports wagering and igaming industry coming April 4th, the panel weighed in on the departure of Unibet and the due diligence being done by operators to enter the province’s regulated marketplace despite a crowded house of almost 50 operators plus OLG. Brewer also brought up the potential impact that a regulated industry in Alberta – along with the possibility of legal igaming coming to New York and other states – could have on Ontario. And our learned trio were also asked about the impact from the first month of the AGCO’s new standards around the use of athletes in advertising and marketing campaigns, including Connor McDavid’s responsible gambling message for BetMGM.

🎙️ Worth A Listen 

Our most popular Gaming News Canada shows from the past few months.

• It's Alberta's turn to open - LISTEN
• Gaming inside the Ontario Court of Justice - LISTEN
• The search for RG continues in Ontario - LISTEN
• Keith Pelley is MLSE's new head honcho, and free-to-play’s place in the gambling industry - LISTEN
• Sportradar on match-fixing and AI - LISTEN

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What hasn’t changed is the potential for the manipulation of matches, and efforts by sports leagues and organizations to provide a product where integrity of competition is front and centre. Krannich is one of the good guys trying to protect that integrity in his role as the Executive Vice President, Integrity, Rights Protection and Regulatory Services for Sportradar.

Krannich joined us from his Munich office on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, just days after Sportradar’s integrity services department released its Betting Corruption and Match-Fixing in 2023 report. Highlights of the report include the detection of 1,329 suspicious matches in 11 different sports across 105 countries, with soccer leading the way (880 cases). Europe had the highest number of suspicious matches with 667, up from 630 in 2022. North America, despite an increase to 35 suspicious matches in 2023 from 24 the previous year, continued to trail Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

On the podcast, Krannich points to the diligence of North American sports leagues when it comes to monitoring suspicious betting activity. The Sportradar EVP also delves into the helping hand artificial intelligence has lent in tracking some 850,000 sporting events last year while acknowledging the ongoing need for human brainpower to complement AI in trying to prevent and detect risks to integrity in sport.

Krannich addresses his company’s work with organizations around the world, including the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, to educate athletes and other sport stakeholders on red flags around match fixing. And, he weighed in on the ongoing presence of organized crime in the world of sports. 

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Adams spoke about the evolution of SharpRank’s business since it shared first-prize honours with Parleh Media Group at the SBC First Pitch competition in December 2021. A company which originally focused on the merging of content, influencers and sportsbooks to protect the marketplace, SharpRank has since emerged as a respected voice among legislators and regulators, including the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

Adams explains the similarities between investing and betting, the blurry lines that can occur when it comes to information being provided to sports bettors, and the challenges operators face in dealing with different legislation and regulation in provinces and states across North America. We also asked him about SharpRanks’ plans for the remainder of 2024.

If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast, please let us know by emailing steve@gamingnewscanada.ca.

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The GNCS panel also had a chin wag about the shifting advertising and marketing strategies of licensed operators in Ontario coinciding with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s new rules to restrict the use of athletes in paid advertising. Mark Silver, the head honcho of Parleh Media Group – proprietors of Gaming News Canada and Homestand Sports – addressed the already-existing change in direction by operators in promoting their sportsbook and igaming products.

Finally, Brewer, Ross, Gray and Abbott provided some bon mots for Silver and Gaming News Canada editor-in-chief Steve McAllister on the news that GNC is shifting to primarily a podcast format. 

If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast, please let us know by emailing steve@gamingnewscanada.ca.

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Zochodne provided his thoughts and layers on spending two days inside an Ontario Superior Court of Justice courtroom last week to listen to lawyers for iGaming Ontario and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke lay out facts and arguments in the council’s civil proceedings against Ontario’s regulated sports betting and igaming industry. Gray, Abbott and Brewer added their perspective on the case, in which Judge Lisa Brownstone is expected to submit a ruling before summer. 

With the changes to the AGCO’s standards around advertising and marketing taking effect tomorrow, the panel discussed the transition by Ontario’s licensed operators to the new regulations around the use of athletes and celebrities, and the continuing presence of .net operations pitching their products on television networks. 

The announcement by Unibet last week that it will officially leave the Ontario market on March 26 sparked a conversation on the likelihood of other licensed operators vacating the province before Year 3 of regulated sports betting and igaming begins in early April. That conversation prompted Brewer to point out that smaller operators are leaning into the Canadian grey market to support their Ontario businesses.

Finally, there was reaction from Abbott, Brewer, Gray and Zochodne to the American Gaming Association releasing a third straight year of record numbers for regulated gambling across the U.S. of A.  

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So, the latest Gaming News Canada Show went down the same road with the help of Phill Gray, Kris Abbott and Brock University sports management professor Dr. Michael Naraine, who’s been a frequently loud voice for the provincial government - and the operators in Ontario’s regulated gambling industry - to make funding available for research into a market that will be two years old on April 4th. The conversation also referenced the soon-to-come changes imposed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission on Ontario for advertising and marketing campaigns.

Nathalie Bergeron, the spokesperson for the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, also made her return to show and responded to reporting by a Sherbrooke news outlet last week that the provincial government in La Belle Province has no intentions to follow Ontario and open up a regulated marketplace. Gray, who has called Quebec home for almost 25 years, provided his thoughts on the issue.

The coalition also recently submitted a pre-budget brief to the province to once again make the case for an expanded legal industry, and Bergeron weighed on that report.

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Alannah Della Vedova, the director of content activation and brand for FanDuel, returned to the pod and discussed the operator’s partnership with Bell Media ahead of Super Bowl LVIII, Taylor Swift and the popularity of novelty bets for the NFL championship game. Gray and Kris Abbott later joined in for some sports wagering talk about the Chiefs-Niners tilt.

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Paul Burns, the president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, appeared on the latest Gaming News Canada podcast and expressed his concern with some of the reporting done in the Marketplace piece. Jessica Welman, the editor-in-chief of SBC Americas, questioned the methodology used by the University of Bristol in its findings while industry veteran Amanda Brewer also weighed in on the Marketplace feature.

Burns, Brewer, Welman and Sebastian Jedrzejewski from U.S. Integrity also participated in a discussion on the leading up to new standards from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario on advertising taking effect at the end of February. Finally, sports trading vet Phill Gray offered a couple of thoughts on Sunday’s NFL conference championship games.

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A2Z Ventures founder Eric Herd and Parleh Media Group CEO Mark Silver got into a busy week of CEO shuffling across the sports betting/media industry, highlighted by the departure of Erika Ayers Badans from Barstool Sports and the news that Patrick Keane is stepping down as the chief executive officer of the Action Network more than two years after the sports betting content company was acquired by Better Collective. Herd and Silver also discussed the potential purchase of bankruptcy-bound Diamond Sports Group by Amazon.

Finally, the aforementioned Gray had a few suggestions for football fans around the NFL playoffs’ divisional round this past weekend.

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Parleh Media Group founder and CEO Mark Silver also joined your humble host and gambling industry insiders Amanda Brewer and Kris Abbott for a conversation on the hiring of Keith Pelley as the new president and chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Pelley is leaving his head honcho position with the DP World Tour to return to Canada and accept one of the plum gigs in the business of sports world.

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The two industry experts also provided their thoughts on the need for more education around the benefits of regulated gambling jurisdictions, what should be the priorities for iGaming Ontario this year, and continued the conversation on responsible gambling initiatives and messaging. Finally, we asked Brewer and Abbott to gaze into their respective crystal balls and make a prediction for 2024.

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Ruddock, the man behind the Straight to the Point newsletter, also discussed the challenges operators face with the uniqueness of new regulated markets across the U.S. We also asked him for his thoughts on the first month of ESPN Bet being in business south of the border.

Finally, Brewer and Gray pontificated on the biggest stories on the business of Canadian gambling over the past 12 months.

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Quebec Online Gaming Coalition spokesperson Nathalie Bergeron joined the show to talk about the results of the latest survey commissioned by the coalition on the appetite for a regulated gambling industry in La Belle Province. 

Regular guests Amanda Brewer, Kris Abbott and Phil Gray all lent their expertise and experience to the topics of the week.

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Joining Holt was Sebastian Jedrzejewski, who just left his senior policy advisor position with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to come on board U.S. Integrity as director of regulatory affairs. Both Jedrzejewski and his new boss discussed the opportunities for the company in Ontario’s regulated marketplace along with the work U.S. Integrity and other organizations like the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport is doing around educating athletes about sports betting and match manipulation. PointsBet Canada executive Nic Sulsky, who sits with Holt on the board of directors for the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, also participated in the segment with the U.S. Integrity folks.

Regular contributors Amanda Brewer, Kris Abbott and Phill Gray all weighed in on last week’s announcement by Kindred Group to pull its business out of Ontario and U.S. states where it has been operating. The trio also discussed the challenges for European-based operators coming into Ontario.

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Troy Ross, the president of TRM Public Affairs, appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to explain the challenges of putting restrictions on place on advertising. Joining the conversation were Amanda Brewer of the Canadian Gaming Association, GeoComply senior executive Lindsay Slader, Parleh Media Group CEO Mark Silver, and Phill Gray, the former head of trading operations for Sports Interaction.

Slader appeared on the show to talk about the opening of GeoComply’s new offices in Toronto, the company’s role in Ontario’s regulated online sports betting and gaming industry, and its advocating regulation in other parts of Canada.

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SBC Americas journalist Jessica Welman made her return to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to speak about the reaction to ESPN Bet’s debut in 17 U.S. states. She also provided some insight into the latest happenings around the push for legal sports betting in California, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

A panel on the final day of the PrimeTime Sports Management Conference & Trade Show included an at-times tense exchange with long-time NHL executive Brian Burke and University of Oregon sports management consultant Mark Francis. Canadian Gaming Association senior advisor Amanda Brewer and PointsBet Canada CCO Nic Sulsky, who were joined on the panel by BetMGM VP Scott Woodgate, provided some additional thoughts on the conversation with Burke and Francis. They also teed up next month’s Promoting Player Health and Wellbeing symposium being organized by the CGA.

Gray also lent his experience and expertise to discussion around the steps taken by the sports betting and gaming industry to not allow minors to gamble, and the protocols in place when it comes to athletes accessing sportsbook accounts. The former Sports Interaction head of trading operations also offered some advice around the 110th Grey Cup between the Montreal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers (and he was right).

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Eric Herd, the founder/CEO of A2Z Ventures, and Silver weighed in on the acquisition of Canadian digital sports media company Playmaker Capital by global digital sports media business Better Collective and the opportunities for BC via Playmaker’s operations in Latin America and Canada.

Brewer and the show’s host, Steve McAllister, teed up their third straight appearance at this week’s Prime Time Sports Management Conference & Trade Show, where they will be joined by BetMGM’s Scott Woodgate and Nic Sulsky of PointsBet Canada for a panel on the state of the Canadian gambling industry. 

Finally, Gray – the recently departed head trader for Sports Interaction – gave his perspective on the sports betting action during the first half of the NFL regular season, including the Taylor Swift bump.

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Silver welcomed Jean-Francois Raymond, a former European pro basketball player and current education ambassador for the International Betting Integrity Association, who spoke about IBIA’s global efforts on monitoring integrity in sport and providing athletes and other participants in sport with information on competition manipulation. 

Amanda Brewer and Phill Gray lent their voices to the discussion and also addressed their recent departures from Kindred Group and Sports Interaction, respectively. Brewer provided her perspective on the slow push for regulated online sports betting and gaming in Alberta, as reported on in Thursday’s Gaming News Canada newsletter. Gray addressed his departure from Sports Interaction after two decades as the head of trading operations for the Canadian sportsbook. 

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Nic Sulsky, the chief commercial officer of PointsBet Canada, returned to the podcast to answer our questions about the comments from PointsBet CEO Sam Swanell that the company predicts profitability for its Canadian business in 2025. Sulsky also commented on the hiring last week of gambling industry veteran Brooke Hilton as head of casino.

Sulsky, regular contributor Kris Abbott and sports marketing agent Brant Feldman, who represents Olympic and Paralympic athletes in both Canada and the U.S., discussed the challenges and opportunities for sportsbook operators around women’s sports, including the Professional Women’s Hockey League which launches in January.

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The latest activation, as they say in marketing/branding/content parlance is The Locker Room, a live watch party that will debut this evening on the Sports Interaction app and website during the NFL Thursday nighter between the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Michael Zitney, the former branded content mastermind for Sportsnet and these days the head of brand and content for Sports Interaction, joined the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, to talk about what the sportsbook is calling the first-of-its-kind Canadian integration of a live broadcast experience into its digital products.

Zitney, who had a bird’s-eye view of the efforts by Sportsnet to fit sports betting information and branding into HNIC last season, discussed the lessons learned from attempting to strike a balance that engages hockey fans who bet, and doesn’t annoy fans who don’t.

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Regular GNCS contributors Amanda Brewer, the Canadian country manager for Kindred Group, and Kris Abbott were back from Las Vegas and provided their thoughts on a Global Gaming Expo that continues to evolve with the expansion of legal online sports betting and igaming in the U.S. Brewer and Abbott also delved into iGaming Ontario’s market performance report for the July-September quarter.

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The hour of information, insight and discussion from the panel included some thoughts on the start of the NHL regular season this week and what impact, if any, the changes to sports betting advertising standards by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario will have on Sportsnet and the league’s other broadcast partners. Both Brewer and Abbott were also asked about the comments by NHL business development executive Kyle McMann about the league’s sports betting partnerships and strategy during a pre-season business-of-the-NHL webinar hosted by Sports Business Journal.

A segment on the current state of the Ontario sports betting and igaming industry also brought up the cone of silence by the province’s conservative government when it comes to tax revenue created by the 40something operators. 

Finally, we teed up this week’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas with some advice for first-time attendees along with shining a light on Monday’s panel on what’s happening in Ontario and the rest of Canada with Brewer, new AGCO CEO/registrar Dr. Karin Schnarr, iGaming Ontario executive director Martha Otton, PointsBet’s compliance chief Chantal Cipriano, and Responsible Gambling Council boss Shelley White.

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Gaming Association vice president Maureen Beddis walked us through the plans for the 2023 Global Gaming Expo, which begins Monday at The Venetian in Las Vegas. Beddis provided a preview of the education sessions scheduled for next week along with flagging some of the conference’s new elements, and delivering some helpful hints for first-time G2E attendees.

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Conor Murray, FanDuel’s vice president of marketing, joined the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to discuss the continued collaboration around mobile product innovation and story-telling. Murray’s appearance happened just days before Genius Sports announced the launch of its BetVision platform which includes providing sportsbooks with live video of NFL games (Sam McQuillan of Legal Sports Report had first dibs on this story last week with his piece on Fanatics using the Genius platform to stream NFL games in its sportsbook app).

PointsBet Canada’s chief commercial officer, Nic Sulsky, returned to the show on the eve of the second annual PointsBet Invitational. The single-knockout men’s and women’s curling event begins Friday night at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex in Oakville, Ontario, and PointsBet is once again hosting a $1 million bracket challenge. Sulsky spoke with us about the progress that’s taken place in PointsBet’s partnership with Curling Canada and the opportunity that an Ontario-based PBI presents for the operator this year.

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Both Roth, who has put his stamps on so many partnership and sponsorship deals for some of Canada's largest sports organizations, expanded on his comments in the Sept. 14 edition of the Gaming News Canada newsletter presented by GeoComply, that the fledgling Professional Women's Hockey League provides an opportunity that goes beyond customer acquisition in regulated sports betting and gaming markets in Ontario, New York and Massachusetts.

Silver and Roth also addressed the recent news that sport drink company BioSteel, currently owned by Canopy Growth, is seeking creditor protection - and a new buyer. 

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John Pappas, GeoComply’s senior VP of government and public affairs, made his return to the show to shine a brighter light on GeoComply’s NFL Week 1 report, which included a 56-per-cent rise in betting transactions from a year ago. Pappas also provided an update on efforts by U.S. states to join the 30-something states with legal sports betting.

Amanda Brewer, the Canadian country manager for Kindred Group, and her LeoVegas counterpart Jacob Hargaden-Llewellin also lent their voices to the conversation on the latest news in the Canadian sports betting and gaming world.

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Amanda Brewer, the Canadian country manager for Kindred Group, and Sports Interaction head of trading operations Phill Gray discussed the amended standards around sports betting advertising introduced last week by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, including a request from the Canadian Gaming Association to sit down with the AGCO and find clarity to some of the changes. Dr. Michael Naraine from Brock University joined the show to call once again for industry stakeholders to participate in putting together data to determine the impact of celebrity appearances in advertising and marketing campaigns on Ontarians placing wagers.

Brewer also weighed in on a summer of changes with leadership at the board level with both the AGCO and iGaming Ontario, and the hiring of Dr. Karin Schnarr to replace Tom Mungham as AGCO’s CEO and registrar. The show finished with a segment featuring Gray on the start of the NFL regular season and some advice for bettors.

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Canadian Gaming Association grand poobah Paul Burns, PointsBet Canada executive Nic Sulsky, and Betano’s Canadian country manager Kris Abbott provided their respective takes on the news, and what the rule changes mean for the industry as it heads into the busy fall sports schedule.

Burns also spoke with us about a recent Toronto Star column around competition manipulation in sport, and concerns that a match-fixing scandal in Canadian sport is just around the corner.

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So, with the end of August very near, Redlick joined us this week for a rapid round of sorts on a number of topics – including his thoughts on the wins and losses from the first 18 months of regulated sports betting in Ontario and the products provided by operators in a highly competitive marketplace. We also asked his opinion on last week’s partnership announcement between Woodbine Entertainment and bet365, and the challenges both Penn and ESPN face in their new alliance.

Also, we started the podcast by asking Redlick for some advice on the rest of the Major League Baseball season, and the Toronto Blue Jays, and some helpful hints for bettors heading into the NFL regular season.

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With an eye towards post-Labour Day weekend, and also looking back at a summer that’s been anything but dormant in the North American sports betting and igaming industry, we brought back our usual Gaming News Canada Show regulars to join us for a past-present-near future episode of the podcast. Kindred Group’s Canadian lead Amanda Brewer, PointsBet Canada CCO Nic Sulsky and Kaizen Gaming’s Canadian grand poobah Kris Abbott weighed in on an array of happenings and issues from the past couple of months, and also provided their insight into what’s coming in what’s expected to be a very active fall for operators.

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The gambling industry veteran – and current free agent – joined the Gaming News Canada Show for a one-on-one interview. The conversation included a deep dive into this week’s alliance between Penn and ESPN, which is getting into the sportsbook game, Penn’s hefty investments in both the ESPN deal and its acquisition of theScore, along with the challenge ESPN BET faces in competing with the major players in the U.S., online sports betting game. Haas also offered a few thoughts on the potential impact of the Penn/ESPN partnership on the Canadian sports betting and media landscape. 

Haas also spoke about his involvement in online gambling across our home and native land, the creation of Ontario’s regulated market, and the positive impact it’s had on OLG’s online gaming operations (he also cited the missed opportunity by other provinces across the country to follow Ontario’s lead). 

Our interview with Haas concluded with him discussing his current involvement with a Danish venture capital firm, and what excites him about the future of gaming.

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Friends of GNC - and SBC execs - Sue Schneider and Nicole Fields also joined the podcast to discuss their participation in a gathering last month in Las Vegas of women who work in the gambling industry. While both Schneider and Fields agree significant progress has been made in expanding executive-suite opportunities for women, they also agree there's still work to be done.

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Zane Hansen, the president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA), explained the reasons for the authority's record-setting fiscal year in 2022-23 in coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and launching its online gaming product (PlayNow.com) in collaboration with the British Columbia Lottery Corportation. Hansen also weighed in on Bill S-268, brought forward in the Senate last month by Senator Scott Tannas to amend the Criminal Code of Canada "to provide that the governing body of a First Nation has exclusive authority to conduct and manage a lottery scheme on its reserve and to license the conduct and management of a lottery scheme by other persons and entities on its reserve", and on possible expansion of regulated sports betting and igaming in Canada beyond Ontario in the future.

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Alannah Della Vedova, the brand director for FanDuel Canada, gave us some of the goods on the sportsbook’s plans for the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament which starts Thursday in Australia and New Zealand. Della Vedova also discussed FanDuel’s commitment to women’s sports, and how the operator will collaborate with TSN on the network’s World Cup coverage.

Finally, SBC Americas editor Jessica Welman joined us for a round-the-horn conversation on the latest news from the U.S. gambling industry, including Ohio’s plans to double its tax rate on legal sports betting operators, the possibility of sports wagering coming to Florida in the near future, and the latest developments from the new marketplace in Massachusetts.

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Peter Scott, the former Turner Sports and Warner Media executive who joined Play Anywhere in April as chief strategy officer, made his maiden appearance on the GNCS to talk about his journey in the media industry, beginning with CNN and then moving into sports and digital media. Scott explained Play Anywhere’s role in assisting sports bodies such as La Liga – the Spanish soccer league – with interactive media, the opportunities in the space to bring together sports media, sports data, sports betting, and more. And he also delivered his thoughts on the potential uses of artificial intelligence in the sports, entertainment and media worlds.

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That comes from our conversation this week with Owen Welsh, the CFL’s associate VP of sports betting, gaming and innovation. Welsh explained the opportunities around the new deal with FanDuel, and the ties of the partnership to both TSN and Genius Sports. He also discussed the league’s coordination with its nine members clubs in the gambling space, which includes the highly-competitive sports betting and igaming market in Ontario, and a monopoly of sorts for provincial lottery and gaming corporations across the rest of the true north, strong and free.

Nathalie Bergeron, the spokeswoman for the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, was also our guest and provided an update on the group’s efforts to persuade elected officials in La Belle Province to bring in a regulated industry.

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No, we don’t remember them, either.

Ok, there’s a slight stretching of the truth here, but not entirely. On the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Paul Burns teed up a busy summer of committee meetings, dealing with potential changes to sports betting advertising standards by the Alcohol and Gaming Association of Ontario, and other business for the president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, and its members. Burns also addressed two Senate public bills which were introduced last week, one to create a framework around sports betting advertising across the country, and another to give First Nations the right to conduct and manage casinos in their communities.

Sean Topchi, the director of business development for Kinectify, joined the show to provide some insight on the Las Vegas company’s work around responsible and also answer questions about the company’s new partnership with Kindbridge Behavioral Health to support that organization’s work with people struggling with problem gambling.

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“We’re trying to make sure there’s some guardrails. We’re looking at pulling that [advertising] in, but we’re not saying, ‘no more’'” Deacon told the GNCS audience. “It’s a balance. I’m not going to deny that, but I think it’s important that we keep that as our laser focus.”

Great Canadian Entertainment executive Chuck Keeling joined the show from Vancouver to discuss Tuesday’s official opening of the Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto, a massive property that when completely finished, will include a gaming floor with slot machines, gaming tables and sports betting kiosks, a 400-room luxury hotel, a 5,000-seat entertainment theatre, a 250,000-square-foot green roof, and plenty o’ parking. Woodbine Entertainment has also been lobbying for customers of both the new casino resort and the adjacent Woodbine Racetrack to have direct access to public transit, Keeling confirmed.

Regular guests Amanda Brewer of Kindred Group and Betano’s Kris Abbott provided their thoughts on the proposed sports betting advertising bill, Toronto’s new $1-billion casino resort, and some final musings on last week’s Canadian Gaming Summit.

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A steady stream of visitors dropped by the palatial GNC/Homestand Sports booth (Ok, neat and tidy is a better way to put it) on the final day of the Canadian Gaming Summit. Mitch Davidson, the chief of staff for iGaming Ontario, kicked off the pod by answering our questions around the economic development report that the conductor and manager of the province’s regulated sports betting and igaming industry released on Wednesday. In case you missed it, the research conducted by Jeff Harris’s team at Deloitte Canada on behalf of iGO included estimates of more than 12,000 full-time jobs being created across the province in Year 1, and a contribution of nearly $1.6 billion to Ontario’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Regular GNC contributors Amanda Brewer of Kindred Group and Nic Sulsky from PointsBet Canada also weighed in on the report and joined FOGNC Benjie Cherniak of Avenue H Capital for their thoughts on the report, what it might mean for regulated gambling beyond Ontario, a summary of the panel discussions and sundry other conversations on the Summit floor this week. SBC marketing director Dennis Algreen stopped by to accept some bouquets on SBC’s very successful maiden performance hosting the Canadian Gaming Summit, and also did some pumping of the proverbial tires for the SBC Summit Barcelona in September.

Canadian Gaming Association president/CEO Paul Burns provided a few bon mots about the conference and gave us an update on the CGA’s conversations with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to find some common ground on the hot-button issue of sports betting advertising. Lastly, iGO executive director Martha Otton stopped by the booth and made an impromptu first appearance on the podcast by giving her thoughts on a busy week meeting with stakeholders in Canada’s only regulated gambling industry.

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With apologies to devotees of Bill Shakespeare. . . . regulators, operators, communicators, suppliers, marketers, engineers, data darlings, and sure, even the folks who occupy the executive suites, lend us your ears.

Cristian Robalino and Jesse Learmonth joined us from Houston and Victoria respectively to help set the table for next week’s Canadian Gaming Summit in the city below Bolton. Robalino, the VP of Marketing for SBC’s Americas business, answered our questions about the preparations for SBC’s maiden voyage in managing the Canadian conference and also delivered some helpful hints for newbie Summit attendees. Learmonth, an industry veteran and owner/operator of The Betting Startups podcast and newsletter, will hold the moderator’s microphone for the First Pitch competition on the final day of the three- day event. Learmonth provided an overview of the three finalists along with the opportunities that come from participating in First Pitch.

Amanda Brewer of Kindred Group weighed in on the reporting in Thursday’s Gaming News Canada newsletter presented by GBG Plc on the exchange of legal correspondence between a coalition of four provincial lottery and gaming corporations, and a coalition of registered operators in Ontario. 

Finally, researchers Dr. Flora Matheson, Dr. Arthur McLuhan and Madison Ford from the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions walked us through the smartphone app they’ve developed to support people with gambling concerns. The SPRinG app, the researchers hope, will provide additional support to existing services around problem gambling.

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What are the learnings from the early days of Ontario's regulated marketplace? What opportunities have been created in a hugely competitive industry. And, is the province's model tailor-made for other provinces across the rest of Canada? Steve McAllister, the Editor-In-Chief of Gaming News Canada, asked those questions - and more - of GBG Plc Director of Gaming Rebekah Jackson; Amanda Brewer, the Canadian Country Manager of Kindred Group; PointsBet Canada Chief Executive Officer Scott Vanderwel; and Jack Tadman of GME Law.

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Canadian Gaming Association president/CEO Paul Burns joined the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to provide a summary of the happenings from the two-day conference of panels, keynote addresses and collaboration by both communities to educate athletes and other participants in sport about the realities involved around match fixing and corruption. Nic Sulsky of PointsBet Canada, a partner of Curling Canada, and Kris Abbott of Betano also weighed in on the cooperation between sportsbooks and sports bodies to educate athletes, coaches and others.

Paul Burns joined the show to summarize the happenings from this week’s Symposium on Competition Manipulation and Gambling in Sport, co-hosted by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, and McLaren Global Sport Solutions. During the symposium, the International Betting Integrity Agency – with support from FanDuel, Betway and bet365 – announced a $300,000 commitment over the next three years to fund an education program for athletes and other participants in Canadian sport about betting, match-fixing and other matters around integrity in sport.

The CCES put out a news release Friday that the main takeaway from the symposium and its participants was “identifying the need for a coordinated pan-Canadian approach to prevent competition manipulation that is bolstered by comprehensive education”.

“The symposium highlighted the fact that Canadian sport needs a plan to address the threat of competition manipulation now before it gets a stronger foothold in Canada,” said Jeremy Luke, the president and CEO of the CCES. “A harmonized, pan-Canadian competition manipulation policy developed with athletes that includes comprehensive education and is administered by an independent organization would be consistent with best practices from sport and other countries, and would contribute to a safer environment for athletes and support personnel. 

“The CCES is committed to working with partners, including athletes, to make it a reality.”  

The podcast also set the table for next Wednesday’s What’s Next for iGaming Regulation in Canada? webinar presented by GBG Plc and featuring a panel with the aforementioned Brewer, Rebekah Jackson from GBG, PointsBet Canada CEO Scott Vanderwel, and legal beagle Jack Tadman of GME Law.

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Today (Friday), the interim leader of the province’s Liberal Party held a news conference to also take umbrage with the “sheer volume of their advertisements”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPO34e3MPfY

The latest series of articles and other reporting comes at the same time that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario is going through 40 submissions with feedback on the commission’s proposal to restrict the use of athletes and celebrities in advertising. So, that was the topic du jour and the subject of a lengthy discussion featuring Amanda Brewer (Kindred Group), Kris Abbott (Betano), Nic Sulsky (PointsBet Canada), along with Gavin Roth and Mark Silver of Parleh Media Group.

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The long-time Canadian lawyer has emerged as a global leader in the fight against the use of performance-enhancing drugs, match-fixing and other forms of corruption in sport. On the eve of next week’s Symposium on Competition Manipulation and Gambling in Sport in Toronto – which will be co-hosted by McLaren Global Sport Solutions and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport – McLaren spoke with Gaming News Canada from his office at McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP in London. 

McLaren, whose career in sport law started as an arbitrator for the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association in the early 1990s, has been a long-standing member of the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, has been involved with five Olympic Games and more recently has been involved in anti-corruption programs for the International Tennis Integrity Agency (which this week banned a chair umpire for manipulating scores for betting purposes), the international basketball federation (FIBA) and the International Boxing Association. We asked McLaren about his journey, and more specifically about his role in unveiling match-fixing activity and educating athletes about gambling in sport. 

He also weighs in on the impact of regulated sports betting, more recently in Canada and the U.S., and the responsibility of all stakeholders to protect athletes, coaches, officials and other participants in sport. 

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This week’s panel of Kindred Group’s Amanda Brewer, along with Parleh Media Group co-founders Mark Silver and Gavin Roth, covered consolidation, M&A, the impact of partnerships/sponsorships and a couple of other matters around the news this week that PointsBet Canada isn’t included in the acquisition by Fanatics of PointsBet’s U.S. operations. Dr. Michael Naraine from Brock University’s sports management program joined to offer his thoughts on potential changes to the rules around sports betting and gaming advertising from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. And Brewer gave an update on the plans for iGaming Ontario to deliver a centralized self-exclusion program to the province’s licensed operators.

Roth, a veteran of the partnership/sponsorship industry, led a conversation about the discussion at a Massachusetts Gaming Commission meeting this week around the use of branding by sportsbook operators and potentially ordering them to incorporate age requirements into that branding.

Finally, we announced that our newsletter sponsor GBG Plc is presenting a What’s Next for iGaming Regulation in Canada webinar on June 10, including GBG’s Rebekah Jackson, Brewer and Gaming News Canada editor-in-chief holding the moderator’s microphone.

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The latest Gaming News Canada Show podcast presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP was an abbreviated edition of the rapid-fire variety. Over the fortysomething minutes, we had guests moving in and out of chairs in a corner of the SBC Sales Lounge (thanks to Bob McFarland and Sue Schneider for letting us set up shop there) as fast and furiously as the Florida Panthers’ forecheck against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL Eastern Conference semifinal series. GeoComply government and public affairs savant John Pappas stopped by to provide his thoughts on the many conversations around igaming and M&A during the Summit’s three days, and also on his company’s acquisition of fellow Vancouver company OneComply to kick start the week. 

Brock University sports management professor Dr. Michael Naraine joined us remotely to discuss the need for third-party research on responsible gambling in Ontario. Regular contributor Kris Abbott from Betano Canada also sat with us for a few minutes, as did Tallysight technology guru Masheed Ahadi to answer a few questions about the San Diego company’s latest partnership deals with Sportradar and Homestand Sports. 

Avenue H Capital founder and FOGNC Benjie Cherniak shuffled his schedule to join us and provide his insight on the hottest topics of the Summit. And we gave the last word this week to Homestand Sports CEO Mark Silver (simply to guarantee we had a lift to Newark International Airport for the flight home. . . . ).

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Burns’s call for an approach of the methodical and consultative sorts was followed by the AGCO announcing Thursday that it was extending by a week (to May 15) the deadline for feedback on its proposed changes. The president/CEO of the CGA explains the national body’s role in collaborating with its members and the regulators to evolve in a brave new regulated gambling world in providing a responsible and sustainable industry. Kindred Group’s Amanda Brewer and Kris Abbott from Betano Group also lend their voices to the conversation, echoing Burns’s words that the Ontario market is a unique one that can’t be compared with other jurisdictions. The trio of industry veterans also discuss the role of broadcasters, other media and social media businesses, and government in helping to establish the parameters for a responsible gambling environment.

Woodbine Entertainment CEO Jim Lawson talks about his decision to step down later this year. Lawson also provides an update on Woodbine’s efforts to integrate sports betting into its business and working alongside regulated operators in Ontario, and tees up the company’s plans at its Toronto racetrack for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby party. 

Last but not least, Homestand Sports CEO Mark Silver explains the media company’s latest partnership with sports gaming software business Tallysight, announced Thursday. 

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Canadian country managers Amanda Brewer (Kindred Group) and Kris Abbott (Betano/Kaizen Gaming), Nic Sulsky of PointsBet Canada, Parleh Media Group partner Gavin Roth, gave three thumbs-up to Nuvei bringing part-time actor/entrepreneur/emerging sports tycoon Ryan Reynolds on board recently as an investor and ambassador for the Montreal-based payments company.

This week’s announcement by esports and sports betting business Rivalry to land igaming operator Pinnacle as a partner in a $10 million financing push, along with NorthStar Gaming’s acquisition of Slapshot Media, kickstarted a conversation on the latest happenings in a dynamic industry which include M&A activity and regulated Ontario operators getting their ducks lined up to take their business into other provinces.

Finally, we took the roundtable route on the habits of sports bettors in a month which includes the start of the MLB season along with the opening rounds of the NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs. Abbott and Sulsky provided a few surprises on what’s been most popular among their brands’ customers.

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So, SBC Americas editor Jessica Welman joined the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to weigh in on reaction to the announcement along with the ongoing debate and discussion around advertising and the integration of sports betting content into broadcasts and other media outlets. Amanda Brewer (Kindred Group), Kris Abbott (Betano Canada), Nic Sulsky (PointsBet Canada) and Gavin Roth (Homestand Sports) added their own bon mots, and also shared their thoughts on the reaction to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s announcement last week to make changes to the rules around advertising and the use of athletes and other celebrities.

Aidan Brain, the VP Conference Production, Americas at SBC, joined us to help set the table for next month’s SBC Summit North America in Secaucus, NJ, and for the June 13-15 Canadian Gaming Summit at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. SBC will be charge of managing the Canadian sports betting and gaming industry conference for the first time, and Brain gave a preview of what attendees can expect with the agenda and some bells and whistles. 

Our panelists also went around the horn on reporting over the past week that PointsBet has enlisted the services of a New York investment bank to seek out buyers for the operator’s North American businesses.

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Kindred Group’s Amanda Brewer, Phill Gray of Sports Interaction, journalist Scott Longley of Earnings+More, Parleh Media Group’s Gavin Roth and Mark Silver, and Canadian sports media expert Jonah Sigel all weighed in on the AGCO’s proposed amended standard:

1. Create an obligation for operators and suppliers to cease any advertising and marketing activities that use athletes, whether active or retired, in gaming marketing and advertising; and,
2. Prohibit the use of cartoon figures, symbols, role models, social media influencers, celebrities or entertainers who are reasonably expected to appeal to minors. This proposed amendment differs from the current standard, which is applicable to persons that “primarily appeal” to minors. Advertising remains a permitted activity, provided other Standards are met.

Longley, speaking to us from the UK, provided an update on the decision by the Premier League this week to ban front-of-jersey sponsorships with its soccer clubs. Mark Potter of EPIC Risk Management also joined the show from the UK to talk about the harassment of athletes on social media, and at sports venues, by disgruntled bettors. Hockey analytics guru Meghan Chayka also came on to discuss her FanDuel Canada-sponsored Strength in Number segments on TSN Hockey this season, and also about the ongoing push for gender equity in the sport that now includes a pilot project that will be funded by FanDuel, Bauer Hockey, Canadian Tire and Harvey’s.

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The Brewer-Hill-Silver trio also took the learnings from the CGA assembly and made a forecast or three on what’s in store over the next 12 months not only for Ontario, but across the rest of the country from elected leaders and provincial lottery corporation leaders chewing on the impact that a regulated, hugely competitive industry has had on Canada’s largest province.

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So, on the eve of the wide-open Ontario market turning one, Canadian Gaming Association head honcho Paul Burns appeared to offer several thoughts on the first 12 months, and a lookahead to what’s next. Burns also teed up the agenda for the Canadian Gaming Association's sold-out assembly in Toronto on Tuesday.

Amanda Brewer (Kindred Group), Will Hill (Sightline Payments), Kris Abbott (Betano Canada), Nic Sulsky (PointsBet Canada) and Mark Silver (Homestand Sports) joined the conversation with Burns, speaking about the good, bad and what-can-be-better going into Year 2 for operators, customers and the industry's other stakeholders.

Albert Vartanian, co-host with James Sharman on The Homestand Show, explained the raison d'etre and some of the topics du jour for the Monday-Friday live sports show on SportsGrid Canada - available on The Roku Channel, Fubo, LG, Toshiba and other streaming TV channels. Vartanian added the Blue Jays fans have good reason to be bullish on Toronto's MLB club this season.

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SBC Americas editor Jessica Welman was back to deliver an update on both the efforts by U.S. states to legalize online gaming and states such as Kentucky, Missouri and North Carolina to legalize sports betting. Welman also weighed in on the early weeks of the regulated online sports wagering marketplace in Massachusetts.

Rege Behe of CDC Gaming Reports and schoolteacher-turned-social media influencer Kelly Koffler spoke about the growing role of influencers in the casino business. And, usual guests Amanda Brewer, Will Hill, and Kris Betano provided their expertise and insight on the smorgasbord of topics discussed, including the uniqueness of the regulated Ontario marketplace – which turns one year old next week – compared with what’s happening south of the border.

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The panel then switched gears and provided its thoughts on the news that Tom Mungham is stepping down this fall as the registrar and CEO of the AGCO. Parleh Media Group founder/CEO Mark Silver, who was in New York twice over the past 2 weeks to attend the iGaming Next NYC23 conference and SportsPro OTT USA Summit, joined the podcast for a conversation on the evolving dynamics across sports betting and sports media. And, of course, we also dedicated a segment to March Madness and the excitement around the sports betting community for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

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OK, OK, apologies for the lousy pun. Truth is, however, that the latest episode of your friendly neighbourhood GNCS podcast has a distinct international flavour. The latest episode started in Berlin, where Bayes Esports head of growth and finance Christopher Bohlmann joined us to expand on the comments he made in the Gaming News Canada newsletter about the “healthy transformation” of the esports industry over the first two months of 2023. Then it was off to New York, where iGaming Next managing director Pierre Lindh was setting up his automatic “We’re Sold Out” reply (OK, that’s a statement of the Trumpian/Santos kind) while giving our listeners a lay of the land for next week’s NYC23 conference in The Big Apple.

https://twitter.com/iGamingNEXT/status/1631217862751682560

Ryan McCarthy, the BCLC’s person in charge of player health, called in from Vancouver to set the table for the lottery corporation’s New Horizons in Responsible Gambling get-together next week along with the BCLC’s five-year extension of its GameSense partnership with MGM Resorts International and BetMGM that was announced this week. 

https://twitter.com/BCLC/status/1631101227730898944

PointsBet Canada CCO Nic Sulsky returned to the show for the first time in a few weeks to discuss the operator’s new responsible gambling message from Kerri Einarson’s four-time Canadian curling championship rink. 

https://youtu.be/zxT6TIumRhk

Sulsky also provided a few thoughts on the announcement this week that Bally’s was shutting down Monkey Knife Fight, the daily fantasy sports business which Sulsky helped create in 2017. Finally, regular contributors Amanda Brewer of Kindred Group and Kris Abbott of Kaizen Gaming/Betano also provided their usual keen insight into the latest news from around the industry.

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And, for the most part, mission accomplished. Canadian Gaming Association grand poobah Paul Burns called in from a bus with his Leaside Wildcats u18 BB hockey team en route to the University of Notre Dame for a final-weekend-in-February tournament to help Gaming News Canada celebrate the second anniversary of our newsletter launch and to look back at the changing landscape of the Canadian sports betting and gaming scene since our inaugural newsletter on February 18, 2021. Benjie Cherniak of Avenue H Capital, Kindred Group’s Amanda Brewer, Kris Abbott of Kaizen Gaming, and Will Hill of Sightline Payments also provided their respective taps of the Jofa Wood Senior to GNC and their thoughts on the shifting sands in Ontario’s regulated industry. And the Gaming News Canada Show’s Fab Four du jour also weighed in on the news last week that Loto-Quebec is involved in discussions with the Montreal Canadiens about installing video gaming machines at Le Centre Bell. 

Finally, GBG Plc director of gaming Rebekah Jackson, joining us from northern England, provided some additional information and context to the news we broke in Thursday’s dispatch that GBG is first to market in Ontario in providing igaming companies with access to two of Canada’s main credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion. 

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John Pappas, the senior VP of government and public affairs for Vancouver-based GeoComply, then joined us for a conversation on the company’s protection of Ontario sportsbook operators from proxy betting and cyberattacks, especially during the week leading up to Super Bowl LVII. And last but not least, NorthStar Gaming CEO and founding father Michael Moskowitz provided more insight into its expanded partnership with global online gaming software provider Playtech, announced at the start of the week.

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Finally, we spoke with Melissa Toney about the Responsible Gambling Council's latest survey of Canadians planning to place a wager on the Super Bowl, and asked her for some advice on how to avoid getting carried away when betting on the big game.

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