Big Debate: Judging by Ontario's figures for the first three months, has the market performed some way below expectations?
Dustin Gouker of Catena Media and Fintan Costello from BonusFinder answer this month's burning question
Yes
Dustin Gouker, VP of content for North America, Catena Media
Ontario released the first numbers from its new regulated online gambling market that started in April, and there’s a good argument they were underwhelming.
Operators handled C$4.1bn in wagers (across both casino and sports betting) and generated revenue of C$162m from April through to June. That’s from a mixture of new operators plus converting the existing grey market operators that had already been serving the province.
There are, of course, reasons to believe these numbers will go up significantly. Not all operators were live at the start, and even more have been onboarded after the quarter ended. We also don’t have figures from the Ontario lottery.
But when you look at comparisons from the US market, it’s hard to see how even these caveats will lead to an impressive bottom line for Ontario. For comparison’s sake, Ontario (population 14.6 million) handled $3.1bn in wagers and totalled $124m in revenue. Here are the three most robust online gambling markets in the US, which feature both online sports betting and casino, from Q2:
• Pennsylvania (population 12.8 million): $520m revenue
• Michigan (population 10 million): $466m revenue
• New Jersey (population nine million): $557m revenue
Keep in mind, all three of these states also have smaller populations than Ontario. We can also look at New York (population 19.5 million) for a comparison, even though it just has sports betting. But over the same quarter, NY operators handled $3.7bn – just for sports.
So, do we think the addition of the lottery data and new operators will push Ontario to surpass all these jurisdictions on a per capita basis? I have a hard time seeing how that’ll be the case.
Is the Ontario market just different? Does it have room to grow a lot? So far Ontario has more to prove before deeming it a runaway success.
No
Fintan Costello, chairman, BonusFinder.com
I have seen several commentators suggesting Ontario has performed below expectations, but I disagree. It didn’t have a smooth start in terms of licensing and restrictive guidance. We expected more licensees to be approved pre- and imminently post-regulation (there was once talk of 70) but only a handful went live on day one. Some big names made their debuts including Bally’s, PokerStars and BetVictor but the more competition, the healthier the market and the better the choice of offerings and incentives for consumers.
Equally, strict advertising and marketing rules have so far prevented brands from targeting large audiences across multiple channels and perhaps not registering as many depositing players as first thought.
This is just the beginning and with more names close to joining, like Entain-backed Sports Interaction, Sports Venture Group’s Bett99 brand and market leader Super Group, analysts expect it will add about C$30m of revenue to Q2’s total of C$162m. Also missing was the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation’s online operation which generated an estimated C$75m. If both had been licensed earlier, Ontario’s total would have been more than double.
The North American sports season is about to kick off with the NFL this month, both the NBA and NHL in October, plus the World Cup in November. Expect this to give us a better indication of where the Ontario market should and could be.
The regulator has announced it will crack down on grey-market operators from November. This will enable both greater licensing visibility and channel more revenue to licensed brands.
The future is bright for Ontario. Unlike most US states bar six, it permits both sports betting and casino and has a healthy pipeline of new, heavy-spending licensees coming through, which means Ontarians will have one of the best betting and gaming markets, not just on the continent but in the world.