Australia’s PointsBet is ready to provide sports betting services in Canada, as soon as commercial companies—as opposed to governmental entities—are allowed to set up sportsbooks.
The company has created a Canadian division, PointsBet Canada, headquartered in Toronto. Its CEO Scott Vanderwell, previously served as senior vice president for Rogers Communications, based in Ontario.
According to a PointsBet spokesman, “We’re really following through on investing in the area … and being as authentically Canadian as you can across every touchpoint, within the product itself, the team you’re doing it with, and so on and so forth.” The spokesman added, “They’re definitely taking that approach, being proudly Canadian.”
The goal is to create a uniquely Canadian sportsbook, with possibly hundreds of employees.
Single-game sports betting launched on August 27 via the country’s provincial lottery corporations, such as the Ontario Lottery. Meanwhile the industry heavy-hitters, such as FanDuel, BetMGM and DraftKings, are waiting on the sidelines for the market to open to commercial operators. This could happen early next year, experts say.
PointsBet uses a different approach, i.e. “PointsBetting.” Wagerers can accrue increased payouts and losses on wagers, which is different from traditional fixed-odds betting.
According to the spokesman, “We own and operate our tech end to end. PointsBet is truly PointsBet from A to B. So with that, we can control our own destiny, what kind of markets are on the site.”
Focusing on the Super Bowl, the spokesman added, “Something we’ve done the past few Super Bowls is we’ve offered the most bet types in the world among legal operators and offshore operators. We’ll go ahead and strive to do it again. We want the deepest offering out there. The Olympics are a great acquisitions tool, bringing in different folks into the realm of sports betting.”
