Sports bettors forced to wait weeks for winnings from OLG

It's been four weeks since Carl Zhou first tried to withdraw his deposits and winnings on the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corpo‐ ration sports betting plat‐ form, Proline, he says.

Since signing up during a promotion in November, the Mississauga resident says he's made successful bets on college basketball, hockey and football games. But de‐ spite submitting all the nec‐ essary paperwork and multi‐ ple chats with customer ser‐ vice, he says he isn't any clos‐ er to receiving his money.

"I'm a little bit disap‐ pointed at the lack of re‐ sponse that I've been get‐ ting," said Zhou, adding he's on competing platforms and hasn't run into similar prob‐ lems there.

"Usually … if you have a problem with this type of is‐ sue, you report it to some like, government entity. But in this case, this is the gov‐ ernment."

WATCH | These sports bettors have been waiting over a month to receive their winnings from OLG:

Zhou is one of multiple OLG Proline gamblers waiting indefinitely since roughly last month to claim their win‐ nings and who are now turned off of using it as their main digital gambling plat‐ form as a result. OLG says the delays are due to having to verify a wave of new ac‐ counts, but one expert says they show the Crown corpo‐ ration is failing to adapt and compete with private com‐ panies.

In an email to CBC News, OLG wouldn't confirm how many people are affected by the delays due to the "highly competitive nature of Ontari‐ o's open gaming market," ac‐ cording to OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti.

The corporation says it registered "a significant influx of new players" ahead of last month's Super Bowl and is working through a backlog of bank account verification re‐ quests - a process required by its regulator, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

"We appreciate the pa‐ tience and understanding of our customers while we work diligently to review and sub‐ sequently verify bank ac‐ counts as quickly as possi‐ ble," Bitonti said. "OLG prides itself on always paying its winners and also carefully complying with regulatory standards."

The Office of the Om‐ budsman of Ontario con‐ firmed to CBC Toronto that the OLG falls within its juris‐ diction, and said in an email that anyone affected can reach out.

OLG had no trouble ac‐ cepting money, says bettor

OLG also won't say how many people signed up as a result of the promotions it ran ahead of the Super Bowl, but Bitonti said the OLG is "pleased with customer re‐ sponse" to what it offered.

One past promotion on its website suggested people could get over $500 in bonuses after betting $50.

That campaign was what ultimately convinced Water‐ loo, Ont., resident Val Stram‐ bu to make a Super Bowl bet. After hearing about sports betting from his daughter and her partner, he told CBC News he decided the return was "worth the gamble," par‐ ticularly with a "trusted" brand like the OLG.

WATCH | Should gam‐ bling messages during sports games be limited?:

But while Stramu says he won over $1,000 from his bet, he's been waiting over a month to claim it. He says he doesn't understand why veri‐ fying his bank information is taking this long when OLG had no trouble accepting his money.

"Opening the Proline ac‐ count was a breeze," he noted.

"You took my money. You should be able to pay me back the same way," said Stramu, adding he never in‐ tends on betting again.

Delays partly due to lack of resources: expert

Michael Naraine, a sports management professor at Brock University, says com‐ panies do need to verify banking information to en‐ sure earnings aren't going to organized crime or other ne‐ farious activities.

Taking money from con‐ sumers isn't as much of a concern since it will ulti‐ mately be used for wagering purposes, he said.

"The probability is the consumer's going to lose that money and the money's going to stay within the ecosystem," he said. "It's once they're trying to with‐ draw that money out of the ecosystem ... the operators have to dot their I's and cross their T's as it relates to where's this money going."

But while the delays may be necessary - particularly for a Crown corporation, which has less resources than pri‐ vate companies - they will drive customers away and ul‐ timately risk pushing the OLG out of relevance, he said.

"The value proposition that OLG makes to the mar‐ ketplace of why Proline needs to exist is because 100 per cent of the profits go back into the community. That's not a good enough val‐ ue proposition for the end consumer in 2024," he said.

"In this attention economy, it's a very instanta‐ neous, synchronous, fast, ex‐ pedited process and para‐ digm and the OLG cannot keep up with that."

Meanwhile, Zhou says he's hoping for more trans‐ parency and regular updates on when he can expect the problem to be resolved. And until his money arrives, he says, he's hesitant to use OL‐ G's services.

"As of now, I don't have any confidence."