Paul Burns, president of the Canadian Gaming Association said in a recent interview he is optimistic that Canada will make another attempt to revise its sports betting laws in in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a sports betting ban in the states.
Other sources also told the Business in Vancouver website that pressure is mounting on Canadian authorities to change sports betting laws that now allow most Canadians to bet of overseas online sites.
Burns said optimism for a change spiked after the Supreme Court decision as North American sports leagues must now deal with the prospect of widespread legal sports betting.
“We know that there’s an appetite for single-event wagering because of the volume of money that we’ve been able to ascertain that goes to overseas sports books,” Burns told the website. “It’s in excess of $4 billion annually.”
Canada’s Parliament tried twice before to change sports betting laws. Canada’s current law only allows wagering licensed and managed by a provincial government, or its agent, within that province’s jurisdiction. Online sports-betting sites operate despite this restriction by arguing that the site’s servers are based outside Canada, so the bets are not technically taking place in the country, Burns said.
The website did find a growing sentiment for changing the country’s law.
“It may be that legalization and regulation of single-sport betting is ultimately the most appropriate route to address this ongoing issue of unregulated sites,” B.C. Attorney General David Eby told BIV in an email.
