Canada next for betting
Canadians interested in placing bets on individual sporting events likely won’t have to wait long before they can do so legally, says University of Lethbridge researcher Robert Wood.
The United States Supreme Court recently struck down a federal law prohibiting sports gambling, thereby opening the door for individual states to legalize betting. Wood says Canada will likely follow suit.
“It’s a product that many Canadians want and that’s evident by the fact that Canadians are spending more than $4 billion per year on sports betting at offshore, online gambling sites and none of that money comes back to the government through taxation,” says Wood, a gambling researcher and professor in the department of Sociology. “To see that kind of money wagered online to offshore gambling houses is just an outflow of revenue from the country. Add to that another estimated $10 billion that is being bet through organized crime, and you have upwards of $14 billion in lost revenue.”
Current Canadian law is actually quite lenient, says Wood, allowing for most forms of gambling. However, one form that is expressly prohibited is placing bets on the outcome of an individual sporting event. But as Wood points out, there’s a demand for single-game wagering and the United States has now opened the door for single-game sports betting in North America.
Gambling also does not carry the stigma it once did, he says.
“You’re trying to regulate something that many people want to do and something that, for most people, is not that morally contentious anymore,” says Wood.
If and when the federal government does decriminalize sports betting, Wood says it is imperative a comparable product is offered to turn people away from what’s available through organized crime.
“Even if the government legalizes sports betting, it doesn’t mean you’re going to stop all illegal gambling — it depends on the quality of the product,” says Wood. “We’ve seen that with online gambling. Some countries have regulated online gambling in order to minimize the outflow of cash, but the product they offer isn’t very desirable, the games aren’t what gamblers want to play and ultimately it fails.”