Ontario's iGaming, sports betting market sees strong debut with $26.4B in wagers placed in first year of operation

Ontario's regulated iGaming market has seen impressive results in its first year of operation, with residents placing around CAD 35.6 billion ($26.4 billion) in total wagers across the 40+ operators live in the Canadian province. This has resulted in total gaming revenue of CAD 1.4 billion ($1.04 billion), placing Ontario among the top five iGaming jurisdictions in North America.

The launch of the regulated market on April 4, 2022, made Ontario the first Canadian province to establish an open, regulated iGaming market. Since then, more than 1.6 million active player accounts have been registered. The average spend per player was around CAD 70 ($52) a month.

Doug Downey, Attorney General, said: "Ontario's iGaming market has displaced the pre-existing unregulated market and made Ontario a recognized leader internationally in this industry since its launch in April 2022. We are truly proud of this strong, responsible, competitive online gaming model."

"I want to especially commend the strong leadership of Executive Director Martha Otton, Board Chair Dave Forestell, and the rest of the team at iGaming Ontario for helping us transform Ontario into a global leader in the sector," he added.

Doug Downey

According to an Ipsos survey conducted in March 2023, around 85% of respondents who gambled online in Ontario over the past three months gambled on regulated sites. This shows that players are placing their trust in the regulated market, which provides a safer protected environment for players to place their wagers.

Basketball proved to be the most popular sport to bet on, taking 28% of all betting wagers, followed by soccer at 15%, football at 14%, then hockey at 9%, and baseball at 8%.

Within the online casino category, nearly half (48%) of all casino wagers were on slots, nearly a third (32%) on table games with a live dealer, and the remainder (19%) on computer-based table games.

George Sweny, VP of Regulatory Affairs at Flutter International, commented on the province's first year of legal online gaming: "At Flutter, we are so proud of Ontario’s success in establishing a regulated and competitive iGaming market over the past year.

"We invested in growing our local Canadian team to launch a full range of both FanDuel and PokerStars’ safe and trusted products as registered operators in the province, allowing Ontario sports fans and Casino players to engage responsibly," he concluded.