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Gaming News Canada Show

Dig into trending gaming and sports betting topics with industry leaders and insiders, reporters and other stakeholders in the business.


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  • 15. Sports Interaction, Homestand Sports content and brand gurus discuss the integration of sports media and sports wagering

    43:31
    Michael Zitney, the director of content and brand for Sports Interaction, and Kevin Kennedy – who holds the same title for Homestand – were our guests on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Zitney and Kennedy discussed the Sports Interaction/Homestand partnership and the creation of The Locker Room – a live show available on the sportsbook’s app during the past NFL season and during other major sports events. Sports Interaction’s content/brand lead also answered our questions about the business’s integration into Hockey Night in Canada this NHL season and tailoring its advertising and marketing strategy around the new standards put into place by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to restrict the use of athletes. Kennedy spoke about the attraction – and evolution - of live events for sports fans post-COVID pandemic, and the ongoing efforts to inform and entertain fans and fans who wager on sporting events.

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  • 14. Recommendations on the fight vs. match fixing in Canada

    47:30
    Almost 10 months after holding a symposium on competition manipulation and gambling in sport, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and McLaren Global Sport Solutions have co-authored a white paper with five recommendations to address match fixing. McLaren senior vice-president Robert Copeland was our special guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to answer our questions about the white paper. Copeland addressed the challenges for the Canadian sport system to combat match fixing, including no mention of competition manipulation in the Criminal Code of Canada, and our home and native land so far not being a participant in the Macolin Convention.  Copeland also got into the need for further education of athletes and other sport stakeholders around sports betting - especially in an Olympic year with the Summer Games coming to Paris- and the need for funding to support education and other programs. He also offered a couple of thoughts on the Shohei Ohtani controversy.
  • 13. On Shohei Ohtani, March Madness, Connor McDavid and the second anniversary of Ontario’s gambling industry

    57:05
    Sports betting and gaming industry veterans Amanda Brewer, Kris Abbott and Phill Gray returned to the Gaming News Canada Show for a rapid-fire roundtable on what’s happening, starting with the news of a gambling connection to the firing of Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday.The start of March Madness and the NCAA women’s and men’s basketball tournaments also sparked a discussion on the decision by sports betting regulators in some U.S. states to place a ban on prop wagers involving college athletes.With the two-year anniversary of Ontario’s competitive sports wagering and igaming industry coming April 4th, the panel weighed in on the departure of Unibet and the due diligence being done by operators to enter the province’s regulated marketplace despite a crowded house of almost 50 operators plus OLG. Brewer also brought up the potential impact that a regulated industry in Alberta – along with the possibility of legal igaming coming to New York and other states – could have on Ontario. And our learned trio were also asked about the impact from the first month of the AGCO’s new standards around the use of athletes in advertising and marketing campaigns, including Connor McDavid’s responsible gambling message for BetMGM.🎙️ Worth A Listen Our most popular Gaming News Canada shows from the past few months.It's Alberta's turn to open - LISTENGaming inside the Ontario Court of Justice - LISTENThe search for RG continues in Ontario - LISTENKeith Pelley is MLSE's new head honcho, and free-to-play’s place in the gambling industry - LISTENSportradar on match-fixing and AI - LISTEN
  • 12. Sportradar on match-fixing and AI

    48:45
    During Andreas Krannich’s tenure working in the Bundesliga – Germany’s top soccer league – two decades ago, sports wagering was pretty much limited to pre-match betting. With apologies to Bob Dylan, the times they have a changed with the boom around in-play and microbetting. What hasn’t changed is the potential for the manipulation of matches, and efforts by sports leagues and organizations to provide a product where integrity of competition is front and centre. Krannich is one of the good guys trying to protect that integrity in his role as the Executive Vice President, Integrity, Rights Protection and Regulatory Services for Sportradar. Krannich joined us from his Munich office on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, just days after Sportradar’s integrity services department released its Betting Corruption and Match-Fixing in 2023 report. Highlights of the report include the detection of 1,329 suspicious matches in 11 different sports across 105 countries, with soccer leading the way (880 cases). Europe had the highest number of suspicious matches with 667, up from 630 in 2022. North America, despite an increase to 35 suspicious matches in 2023 from 24 the previous year, continued to trail Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. On the podcast, Krannich points to the diligence of North American sports leagues when it comes to monitoring suspicious betting activity. The Sportradar EVP also delves into the helping hand artificial intelligence has lent in tracking some 850,000 sporting events last year while acknowledging the ongoing need for human brainpower to complement AI in trying to prevent and detect risks to integrity in sport. Krannich addresses his company’s work with organizations around the world, including the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, to educate athletes and other sport stakeholders on red flags around match fixing. And, he weighed in on the ongoing presence of organized crime in the world of sports. 
  • 11. SharpRank’s evolving journey through the North American sports betting business

    45:00
    Chris Adams has been a passenger on the fast-moving train of regulated gambling in the U.S. since the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. The founder and CEO of Baltimore-based SharpRank is our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to talk about his journey from auditor to investment banking, to enrolling in business school, and to hearing the radio commercial that steered him to the sports wagering industry.Adams spoke about the evolution of SharpRank’s business since it shared first-prize honours with Parleh Media Group at the SBC First Pitch competition in December 2021. A company which originally focused on the merging of content, influencers and sportsbooks to protect the marketplace, SharpRank has since emerged as a respected voice among legislators and regulators, including the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.Adams explains the similarities between investing and betting, the blurry lines that can occur when it comes to information being provided to sports bettors, and the challenges operators face in dealing with different legislation and regulation in provinces and states across North America. We also asked him about SharpRanks’ plans for the remainder of 2024.If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast, please let us know by emailing steve@gamingnewscanada.ca.
  • 10. It's Alberta's turn to open

    56:20
    On the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show podcast, regulated gambling industry veteran Troy Ross of TRM Public Affairs offered his thoughts on the path to a competitive digital gaming marketplace in Alberta. Ross was among the folks with whom Dale Nally, the Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, met during last month’s ICE conference in London, and a new online gaming regime was mentioned in the provincial government’s budget presentation last week. Ross was joined by regular contributors Kris Abbott, Amanda Brewer and Phil Gray for a roundtable discussion on the odds of British Columbia and Quebec also following the Ontario road to regulation.The GNCS panel also had a chin wag about the shifting advertising and marketing strategies of licensed operators in Ontario coinciding with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s new rules to restrict the use of athletes in paid advertising. Mark Silver, the head honcho of Parleh Media Group – proprietors of Gaming News Canada and Homestand Sports – addressed the already-existing change in direction by operators in promoting their sportsbook and igaming products.Finally, Brewer, Ross, Gray and Abbott provided some bon mots for Silver and Gaming News Canada editor-in-chief Steve McAllister on the news that GNC is shifting to primarily a podcast format. If you’d like to be a guest on the podcast, please let us know by emailing steve@gamingnewscanada.ca.
  • 9. Gaming inside the Ontario Court of Justice

    57:47
    On the latest edition of the Gaming News Canada Show, regular guests Amanda Brewer, Kris Abbott and Phill Gray were joined by Covers gambling industry beat writer Geoff Zochodne for a rather robust roundtable.Zochodne provided his thoughts and layers on spending two days inside an Ontario Superior Court of Justice courtroom last week to listen to lawyers for iGaming Ontario and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke lay out facts and arguments in the council’s civil proceedings against Ontario’s regulated sports betting and igaming industry. Gray, Abbott and Brewer added their perspective on the case, in which Judge Lisa Brownstone is expected to submit a ruling before summer. With the changes to the AGCO’s standards around advertising and marketing taking effect tomorrow, the panel discussed the transition by Ontario’s licensed operators to the new regulations around the use of athletes and celebrities, and the continuing presence of .net operations pitching their products on television networks. The announcement by Unibet last week that it will officially leave the Ontario market on March 26 sparked a conversation on the likelihood of other licensed operators vacating the province before Year 3 of regulated sports betting and igaming begins in early April. That conversation prompted Brewer to point out that smaller operators are leaning into the Canadian grey market to support their Ontario businesses.Finally, there was reaction from Abbott, Brewer, Gray and Zochodne to the American Gaming Association releasing a third straight year of record numbers for regulated gambling across the U.S. of A.