Atlantic Canada beats Ontario for the proportion of adults registered to bet online. That is despite the fact that Ontario was the first Canadian province to go live with online sports betting and online casinos.
An Ipsos poll of 2,000 Canadians conducted in May showed that 33 percent of Ontario adults over 18 who took part said they are registered on at least one online betting platform. This is compared to the Atlantic region, where the Atlantic Lottery Corporation operates, and where 41 percent of adults are registered to bet online.
British Columbian adults registered at a rate of 33 percent, with Quebec at 26 percent, Alberta 24 percent and Manitoba/Saskatchewan at 22 percent.
In Ontario, an approximately equal percentage of residents signed up with private operators (25 percent) compared to the government-operated OLG.ca platform (23 percent.)
But the real measurement, money, favors the private operators. Ipsos found that 44 percent of wagers placed in Canada were to government sites, and 56 percent to private operators.
Sports betting and online betting was legalized in Canada last summer with the passage of Bill C-218, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act. However, its regulation was reserved for the individual provinces.
Most decided to give a monopoly of online gaming to provincially-operated lotteries. Ontario was the exception. It went live with a wide-open regulated market that was accompanied by ubiquitous ad campaigns and celebrity endorsements.
Legalization hasn’t stopped gray and black market offshore operators from continuing to grab a significant share of the market, despite the best efforts of regulators. Other polls have shown that only about a fifth of Canadians were aware the new form of gaming was legal, and only 26 percent were aware that Ontario was open to private competition.
