Gaming News Canada

It has been a fortnight and more since Paul Burns has been our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show. So given the various happenings around the Canadian gambling industry since his last appearance at the beginning of 2025, we asked Paul Burns to join us once again. With apologies to the late James Stewart and Frank Capra, Mr. Burns went to Ottawa earlier this month for the Council of Europe Workshop on the Macolin Convention gathering, which included panel conversations featuring the CGA head honcho, Dave Phillips and Doug Hood from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and Sportradar’s integrity services lead Jim Brown weighing in on the province’s regulated sports betting industry’s work to combat match fixing. During our conversation, Burns told us that the collaboration between the AGCO, licensed sportsbooks, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders means “the regime is working”. We also asked Burns for some thoughts and layers on three years of open, regulated sports wagering and igaming in Ontario and what's to come in Year 4, and the introduction of the iGaming Alberta Act by the ruling UCP party into the provincial legislature in the land of oil, gas and Connor McDavid. He also delivered an early look at what will take place during the June 17-19 Canadian Gaming Summit in the city below Caledon.

From the Department of Learning Something New Every Day (or something went MIA from our aging brain): Bill Gates was the brain behind the “content is king” phrase.Alas, we digress.On the latest Gaming News Canada Show, The Parleh’s director of creative strategy and partnerships, Kevin Kennedy returned to the podcast for a chin wag about the evolution of content and storytelling in the legal business of online sports betting and igaming. Kennedy, one of the six partners in the creation of The Parleh (and, in the name of transparency, Gaming News Canada is Parleh Media Group owned) almost four years ago, has led the company’s work on behalf of OLG, ProLine, Sports Interaction (Entain), Party Casino (Entain), BetMGM, BET99, FanDuel, Betano, NEO.bet, Wildz (Rootz), 888 (Evoke), BetVictor and NorthStar Gaming, since Ontario’s open marketplace launched in April 2022. The Parleh has also collaborated with sports organizations such as the Canadian Elite Basketball League and, more recently, The Curling Group, and produces Sports Interaction segments featuring David Bastl on Amazon Prime Video’s NHL Coast to Coast broadcasts during the regular season.https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIrbtydPifz/?igsh=aGhhaG96bWV5MXBhWe took Kennedy on a trip down memory lane to the spring/summer of 2021 when he oversaw a deep roster of content creators producing a plethora of video clips from their residences during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast forward to today, where we discussed the lessons learned along the way, the strategy for managing multiple operators in Ontario, the balance of sports betting and igaming storytelling – including the creation of “streeters” content that is now commonly used in the market – and the growth in online casino content.

The latest episode of the Gaming News Canada is a gathering of members of the fourth estate to discuss and debate the latest storylines in the business of sports wagering and gaming. Dave Briggs, who mans the keyboard these days on the GNC newsletter. Robyn McNeil of Catena Media’s Bonus outlet and Covers senior news analyst Geoff Zochodne join the media roundtable. The three-year anniversary of Ontario’s open market sparked a good/bad/somewhat ugly-type of conversation, including the continued presence of 49 operators (and OLG), the (still) waiting for a centralized self-exclusion program to be delivered by iGaming Ontario through its partnership with IC360 and IXUp, the (still) waiting for Martha Otton’s replacement to lead iGO, and the ongoing cone of silence - most notably by the provincial government and the AGCO - around legal gambling in the province (McAllister also brought up the curious decision by the American Gaming Association to turn down an interview request for a CBS Sunday Morning feature into the explosion of online sports wagering in the U.S. of A. and gambling addiction). The panel also weighed in on the horse racing industry’s attempts to expand wagering through the Ontario open market, whither consolidation and the financial results delivered by the legal industry. McNeil, Zochodne and Briggs also got into the efforts by the Danielle Smith government in Alberta to get approval on Bill 48 to establish its own open sports betting and igaming marketplace. And the all-journo podcast included a segment on the stories du jour, including the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s look into limiting, and the ongoing legal wrangling involving Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com around “sports event trading”.

It had been a while since John Levy last spoke when he appeared last month at the NEXT.io Summit in New York. He had a few things to say about the departure of himself and sons Aubrey, Noah and Benjie from PENN Entertainment some 14 months ago, more than 2 ½ years after PENN acquired theScore in 2021. We’ve been giving it the old college try to get the elder Levy back on the podcast, and we finally succeeded this week as Ontario’s open, legal sports betting and igaming industry recognizes its third anniversary. Our conversation included a trip down memory lane before single-event sports betting was given legal blessing by the federal government, and your humble host read a quote from Levy in a May 2021 Toronto Star column about legal online gaming coming to the true north, strong and free, Levy spoke about theScore’s success in Ontario, both pre- and post-PENN ownership, the company’s partnerships with the Toronto Blue Jays and Golf Canada, and some overall thoughts about the province’s legal gaming market, advertising and marketing strategies, the ongoing efforts by the industry around responsible gaming and the challenges/opportunities ahead in Ontario, Alberta and beyond. He also (somewhat) answered our question about what’s next.

Ontario’s open, regulated sports wagering and online gaming market will turn three years old next week (the Fourth of April to be exact). A marketplace that opened in 2022 with a baker’s dozen of operators approved to open their digital doors for business has expanded to 50 operators managing 84 gaming websites. Just before the Ontario market’s third anniversary, your humble host recorded interviews with Bet99 head honcho Jared Beber, TRM Public Affairs president Troy Ross and igaming executive Amanda Brewer. Beber, Ross and Brewer answered our questions about the evolution of the province’s regulated industry – including changes made to the rules around advertising and the use of athletes - and the role of both the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario in creating one of the largest legal gambling jurisdictions on the planet. The trio also talked about the industry’s responsible gaming programs, and the province’s success in driving out offshore operators.  And, of course, the conversations included the to-come launch of open, regulated gambling in Alberta and the potential for other Canadian provinces to follow Ontario’s lead.

For Rick Allec, the wonderful world of sports blazed the path to a career in the gaming industry that’s now in its fourth decade. Allec, who’s today in charge of OddsLogic and WagerTalk Media, made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBC Plc. Host Steve McAllister took the sports betting industry veteran back to his first gig in the industry writing tickets and then becoming a sportsbook manager. He discussed his creation of data business SportsOptions and an eventual merger with Don Best Sports that brought him together with Friend of GNC Benjie Cherniak. Allec also got into the shifting sands that is the business of sports data, and what OddsLogic customers are seeking in today’s world of live/in-play wagering. We also couldn’t help ourselves on devoting a segment of the show to the sports media landscape, and Allec’s thoughts on the integration of sports betting content into sports broadcasts and other content given his WagerTalk Media business.