The long sought approval of single-event sports betting in Canada will have to be sought later as the House of Commons adjourned December 11 for the Christmas break without holding debates on the bill.
Hearings will pick up when House members return in late January.
The attempt to approve such wagering has run into one roadblock or another for a decade, but this time around there seems to be strong bipartisan support.
Still, instead of a debate on the merits of the bill, the House chose to focus on expanding access to medical care for the dying.
“It’s not a huge deal, as the bill can be picked up with no threats to it,” a Canadian gambling expert told Sports Handle. “But it doesn’t require lengthy debate, so it can move quickly.”
But supporters hoped to see the House pass the bill prior to the end of the year after Justice Minister David Lametti introduced the legislation on November 26. The Canadian parliamentary system requires three readings before being adopted and sent to the Senate.
The bill will amend a section of the Criminal Code of Canada, which bans single-game sports betting. Lametti’s proposed law involved making single-game wagering legal.
One of the side effects of the bill is to lessen the impact of illegal, offshore betting. The Canadian Gaming Association estimates that bettors in the country spend about C$10 billion (US$7.82 billion) per year on single-event sports through bookmakers connected to organized crime. Canadians also bet C$4 billion through illegal, offshore websites.
“Our government knows that in order for gambling to take place in a safe and responsible way, it must be properly regulated,” Lametti’s spokesperson wrote in the statement. “The changes we are proposing would give Canada’s provinces and territories the ability to regulate single-sport betting. By taking illegal betting profits out of the hands of organized crime, revenues could be directed towards health care and education initiatives.”
In 2016, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act went down in the House after some liberal members of Parliament objected over concerns of match fixing. Lametti countered that regulation in the provinces reduced the chance of such schemes because of the visibility from tracking bets.
Today, leaders in several parties have discovered common ground on the issue. Windsor West MP Brian Masse urged colleagues to consider the bill during the December 11 session, but ran out of time.
“That is the exciting part, we now have all party alignment in the House of Commons, and the government that is controlling the agenda is the one that is driving the bill,” said Paul Burns, CEO of the gaming association.
Legalization could support an online gaming market which would benefit other parts of the gaming sector in Ontario and elsewhere. The size of the Ontario market is not lost on top sportsbook operators such as DraftKings.
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins spoke of the company’s interest in Ontario.
“We have a very nice size user base there, and we think it could be a really great opportunity,” Robins said. “We’re very hopeful that we’ll be able to add both sports betting and iGaming in Ontario sometime next year.”
And with Michigan ready to begin online sports betting, neighboring Windsor-area casinos may suffer.
If single-event wagering becomes the law of the land, five provincial lottery corporations will be charged with drawing up regulations. The incentive to get it done lies in the fact that single-game bets could generate between $125 million and $175 million in annual revenue for provinces like British Columbia.
Burns believes such wagering will be ready to go in 2021.
“We now have an alignment,” he said. “It truly puts us on a path to getting it done quicker.”
