Deep diving into the Ontario market
Barclays and Morgan Stanley data suggest early three-way tussle between theScore, FanDuel, and bet365 for Canadian supremacy
Ontario’s igaming and sports betting market is turning into a three-way fight between theScore, FanDuel, and bet365, according to the latest market data from investment banks Morgan Stanley and Barclays.
In a report on the pre-launch and post-launch Ontarian environment, Barclays data suggests that the trio are all leading the way in respect of app downloads during the first 10 days of the regulated market.
Barclays analyst James Rowland Clark suggested that prior gray market incumbents bet365 and Betway had shown their strength in the market, commanding a combined 65% app share of time spent on sports betting apps over the period April 4-13.
However, Clark cited the increased prevalence of newly licensed brands theScore, FanDuel, and BetMGM as a precursor to this dominance eroding over time.
“We are encouraged by the timely launch of FanDuel and BetMGM in Ontario and find the app data to be supportive of our market share prediction of c.7% for both FanDuel and BetMGM in Canada at this early stage,” Clark wrote.
At a wider Canadian market level, Barclays has cited estimates by H2 Gambling Capital showing the dominance of Canada’s onshore (land-based) betting and gambling operators, which combined account for a 36% share of the market in 2021.
Elsewhere, Morgan Stanley has doubled down on its earlier estimates of theScore’s early dominance in the Canadian market, suggesting that its initial app download share of 65% on April 4 had stabilized to a figure of 18%.
“This is still ahead of the 10%/5% Canada sports betting/igaming share we model for theScore. Bet365’s share has increased from 14% on April 4 to >30% the past five days,” Morgan Stanley analyst Tom Allen wrote.
“Bet365’s revenue share may be even higher as we have heard the company made a big push in March to transition their customers from their legacy international app to its new Canada app (bet365 had 77% share in March, up from 36% the prior 12 months).
“FanDuel share started at 14% on day one and has hovered between 14%-25% since. BetMGM has steadily increased its share through April, starting at 2% and yesterday was up to 17%.
“Given that not all major US operators are live in the Ontario market yet (for example DraftKings), we expect to see further share shifts over the coming months,” Allen continued.
“However, taking first-mover advantage has proven a successful strategy in most US markets so an early lead is a positive read-through for the top five operators which account for 92% of April MTD downloads,” he added.
In its earlier report, Morgan Stanley had not included US market leader FanDuel in its April estimates, something which the investment bank highlighted as being due to mapping issues with its data provider affecting FanDuel, BetMGM, and PointsBet estimates.