The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Canada in new era of sports betting
Field of play changes for sports wagering
Some might say Canada is betting that singlegame sports wagering will provide a new stream of revenue for provinces, but that's still to be determined.
New single-game gambling rules went into effect Aug. 27, and now it's up to the provinces to figure out how the new era in betting will be implemented.
“In the United States, the data companies are partnering with the big sports book operators,” says a gaming expert living in Nova Scotia.
“The Fanduels, the Draftkings, the MGMS of the world, they've all moved online to try and take advantage of single-game betting being legalized,” said the expert, who didn't want to be identified.
“That might happen here, where the provinces don't do a whole bunch of work creating their own new (gambling) products but they partner with someone and then just take a little, basically, royalties or something of that nature.”
Bill C-218 allows Canadians to bet on individual games, perhaps attracting those who might otherwise get their gambling fix from offshore sites, U.S. casinos and illegal bookmakers and keeping their wagering dollars in Canada within a regulated industry.
Interest in sports betting in Canada started when the provincially run lottery corporations started offering Pro-line betting in the 1990s, the expert said. While many thought Proline would eventually lead to single-sport betting, it has taken until now for those involved in data collection and wagering in Canada to really get excited.
Canadian companies, such as Halifax-based Covers, established in 1995 by two sports fans, have grown to become a global resource for sports data and information useful to bettors. But the big markets have been overseas, where sports betting has been legal for some time, and in U.S. states that have allowed it.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
Mark Harper, the general manager of Covers, said Bill C-218 opens up a host of opportunities for his company as sports books operators become licensed, initially in Ontario and then across Canada.
“It'll mean that Europeanbased sports books will enter the market and be licensed the same way that they are in Europe and the U.S., so those are deals that we have already internationally with the company, that'll mean that the Canadian marketplace follows the same sort of path that the U.S. and Europe have followed with licensing and legislation,” Harper said.
“Oh, it's huge, yes. It's massive
“About 70 per cent of our users come to us from U.S. (internet addresses) but then 10 or 15 per cent do come from Canadian IP addresses, so a good portion of our audience do come from Canada. So, it's a massive opportunity for us to service those users with services that our users outside of Canada get.”
The change is an opportunity for a company like Covers, and Harper said it will be filling about 30 new positions in Halifax to add to its staff of 70.
The expert said there has always been single-game betting here because the Canadian government has been lenient about wagering online.
“You see the ads on the television for places that advertise free-play models, but the government never really stopped people from going and playing in these places, whether they were offshore or in England,” he said.
“People could always do Pro-line betting where they had accumulators or parlays where you bet on three of them and you get a bigger pot. The problem was, of course, the sports lotteries, Pro-lines of the world, never gave the proper odds because they were the only game in town, so your payouts were much less than what you would get from a real sports book in Vegas or a real sports book online.”
The legislation should allow lottery corporations to generate more money but even in the United States, the expert said, only about 10 U.S. states have sports betting.
“Each of the states that have adopted sports betting have their own unique deals with the different sports books and then they're supposed to collect taxes from the different sports book operators as they set up shop in the state.”
Atlantic Lottery Corp., owned jointly by the four regional provincial governments, started offering single-event sports betting online and at retail locations in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and P.E.I. Jillian Moore, who speaks on behalf of Gaming Nova Scotia, said in an email that Bill C-218 and efforts to decriminalize single-event sports betting is something that will be assessed and discussed with the new government in Nova Scotia.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
The expert said provinces must be careful about setting odds, otherwise big-time professional gamblers will swoop in and seek to take advantage. Odds makers use a point spread, which is a number to serve as a handicap between two opponents. If the spread is not a true reflection of the odds, keen gamblers could seize the opportunity.
In Canada, it will be up to each province to write its rules for single-game betting, he said.
“Problem with that is you have some small provinces like Nova Scotia and P.E.I. with a very small population base, they probably aren't going to risk big bettors coming in abusing them and taking them for a whole bunch of money.”
To counter the sharks from taking advantage, it may be tempting for provinces to put restrictions on the odds or amount wagered, but the expert warned that may chase customers back to offshore sites or online.
There is a revolution happening in gaming, he said.
“They can put sensors in players' equipment so that the league can get more interesting data points to make fantasy sports or whatever more interesting.
“And what's also going on in the States is the leagues, because they own all that in-depth data, whether it's the speed of a baseball coming off a bat or how fast a guy is running in basketball or how hard the hits are in hockey, the league owns all that stuff.”
Leagues can offer that information to sites that want to offer live betting.
“Gamblers who make bets all during the game, what the next play is, how many yards the quarterback will pass for. ... It's a huge, huge market.”
It's a way for leagues to monetize the data generated by their sport even if they are not directly involved in the gambling side of the business, said the expert.