200,000 Canadians could robustly self-exclude from harm via iGaming Ontario 645o5v

March 14, 2025 1v66u

With U.S. President Trump's recent tariffs threatening the Canadian economy, we know that Canada needs to tighten up on costs, while boosting revenues across sectors in preparation for the potentially difficult road ahead.  There is no more significant, easy-to-pick, low hanging fruit in this regard, than the revenue that could be gained through iGaming regulation. Thus, we've recently highlighted how various Canadian provinces could benefit from increased revenue by finding a way to come to an agreement with Ontario, in order to offer iGaming Ontario gaming sites to their residents.

These other provinces have well over a million players that sit within Canada's grey market for online gaming. In potentially coming to an agreement with Ontario to bring these s within the regulated regime, we showed how over $900 million could be repatriated across Canada. Quebec could repatriate over $300 million per year. Alberta and BC could each repatriate over $200 million per year. Manitoba and Saskatchewan could repatriate $50 million and $45 million per year respectively, and Atlantic Canada could repatriate over $100 million per year.

Canadian provincial iGaming cooperation has precendents 3x1g5a

In a time when inter-provincial trade barriers are supposedly being abolished, the associated revenue benefits here would be incredible. This play has been happening for decades. Canadians outside Ontario are already customers with many of the same large brands that exist in both the "Canadian grey market" and the regulated Ontario market.  Our suggestion to the iGaming Ontario ecosystem of sites is not just a shot in the dark, as there are precedents for iGaming agreements and cooperation between provinces. Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba have deals with BCLC to offer co-branded versions of BC's PlayNow.com to the residents of these Prairie provinces.

Beyond revenue: The human benefit of Ontario's self-exclusion registry 623927

While we've outlined the important revenue case for the rest of Canada to  Ontario's iGaming market, it's also important to highlight the potential human benefits that could be achieved with regard to harm reduction if these inter-provincial partnerships could take place.  In summer 2024, we made an assessment about the self-exclusion registry that was going to be developed in Ontario.  Given the likely registry design and overall market structure, we stated that Denmark's self-exclusion results would likely be the most similar to Ontario's.

As a reminder, the point of this centralized exclusion registry is to allow people based in Ontario the ability to enter their information just once to create a profile, and that one profile will be used to prevent access to all 84 iGaming Ontario brand platforms, plus OLG's platforms. In concert with this, since Ontario has regulated its market, a huge swath of operators within the former "grey market" for Ontario that did not gain local licences, have stopped serving people in that province - they respect the market regulations.

So once a person has self-excluded in Ontario, they won't be able to play on legal Ontario sportsbooks or gaming sites, and due to regulation and the respect from other jurisdictions, there are far, far fewer unlicensed options available for those that experience harm, to go out and find, in order to circumvent their own exclusion preferences in a moment of crisis. In other words, once the self-exclusion registry is operational, things in Ontario will be much, much safer for those that experience gambling harms.

Over 200,000 Canadians outside of Ontario, could be helped by robust self-exclusion 38vc

In the piece linked above, at the time of writing, we showed that Denmark had reached 50,000 self-excluded individuals via their registry, which is a rate of about of 0.84% versus its total population - not quite one per cent.  As we believe Ontario's results will closely resemble those in Denmark for the reasons we outlined in that other piece, we want to apply this same self-exclusion rate to the Ontario population, and then to the rest of Canada's provinces so that we can closely approximate the number of people that need to be made safer, that can be made safer. 

We have applied this self-exclusion rate in Table 1. The numbers are staggering.

Given the financial catastrophes that can occur with gambling addiction, that can snowball into all manner of catastrophic personal outcomes, it is incredible to us when we see these potential figures, that provincial government leaders and gaming regulators are not rushing to establish a partnership with iGaming Ontario. Excluding Ontario, the 2024 Q4 population for the other Canadian provinces was 25,160,354. Were these people within an environment like iGaming Ontario that will inevitably see a self-exclusion rate near that of Denmark, we could see over 210,000 Canadians self-exclude from harm in a robust fashion. 

Bureaucracy vs. pragmatism: A path to safer iGaming 385y66

Again, not only would these people be able to prevent themselves from accessing the legal Canadian sports betting and online gaming sites as part of the iGaming Ontario ecosystem, but a wide array of formerly "grey market" brands would move to respect their jurisdiction's rules, and stop serving their citizens. Hundreds, if not over a thousand gaming options would all of a sudden move from being available, to being off the table for vulnerable individuals. Circumvention of their self-exclusion choices would be made much more difficult as a result.  Compare this robust self-exclusion strategy and system to the current harm reduction programs across the country outside Ontario.

Self-exclusion registries exist in BC, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Atlantic provinces, but are significantly limited in their effectiveness. While provincial programs like Game Break aim to prevent access to provincially regulated gaming platforms and casinos, they have no authority or capability to restrict individuals from playing on over 2,000 offshore gaming sites, including the sibling offshore brands of those found within the legal Ontario market.

Consequently, individuals who have self-excluded from regulated, provincial gambling options can easily by these measures by shifting to offshore operators, rendering the purpose and utility of provincial exclusion registries highly limited. Until provinces take further steps to regulate their markets which would help limit access to these offshore gaming sites, the self-exclusion tools in most Canadian jurisdictions will remain largely symbolic rather than truly effective solutions.

The potential self-exclusion numbers we provided paint both a dark, but potentially optimistic picture.  If stasis persists, the 0.84% self-excluded population figures can be viewed as the vulnerable people that are currently not being helped by their own governments, despite there being known and available solutions to the problem at hand. The optimistic side of the numbers comes in that we can move to create the conditions where the vulnerable people represented by these numbers can actually be helped.

Why would provinces outside Ontario continue to defend their misnamed iGaming "monopolies," without any sort of pragmatism? The "average Joe" doesn't care that Mr. and Mrs. Lottery Corporation Executive call his preferred offshore online sportsbook, an "illegal operator". That sportsbook accepts his registration, they accept his money, and Joe sees no direct penalty - so how exactly are they "illegal" to him?  In failing to acknowledge this issue with a level of pragmatism, moving to regulate iGaming, hundreds of millions of dollars will continue to leave the country every year, and hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Canadians will remain at risk each day. 

One iGaming market, not ten (or 13), requires humility 4a1m5w

But the good news is that there is no need to re-invent the wheel on this subject. Ontario has done the hard work. Its market size has allowed it to attract essentially all the big iGaming operators. Even if smaller provincial markets saw the light and decided to regulate on their own, (as Alberta has) they could struggle to create a market that is equally vibrant. The largest brands would certainly take the plunge, but would all 80+ Ontario brands want to jump through another set of licensing hoops to serve a distinct Alberta jurisdiction, which is about one-third Ontario's size?  That remains to be seen, but it would be reasonable to assume that Alberta will not be able to create a market with an equal number of brands.

It would be so much simpler for all involved, and far more effective from a revenue and cost perspective if other provinces simply moved to iGaming Ontario. However, we know that government bureaucrats love to make work for themselves. After all, why else do they exist? Do they exist to find the most effective and cost-efficient solution for their constituents, the tax-paying public". 

The most efficient thing to do, which maximizes safety and revenue, is simply negotiating an agreement for their markets to "plug into" iGaming Ontario. As U.S. President Trump's tariff threats continue, Canadians and our officials are finally talking about how we need to be one market, not 10 provincial and 3 territorial markets. We have seen iGaming agreements between Saskatchewan.  In those agreements, the latter two needed to swallow their pride a little bit, and say:

"Hey, you (BCLC) did a good job on PlayNow.com. We're not quite big enough to do what you did there, for ourselves. Would you mind creating versions of that for our people? We'll pay you, and be thankful you helped us."

This humility is what's standing in the way of over 200,000 vulnerable Canadians from being made a lot safer right now (let alone the annual repatriation of hundreds of millions of dollars, which we discuss elsewhere). The Ontario self-exclusion registry will be delivered soon. With its delivery, the last excuse for other provinces in not ing the Ontario iGaming market will be eliminated.  We understand. Bureaucrats love and want control, but in this case, there are so many things out of their control already.

They cannot control the "grey market" of operators, nor their citizens' activity with them. They may also not be able to create their own regulated market to disrupt and shift this activity. However, if they are willing to humbly cede a little bit of control to Ontario, with a little bit of respect for what has been achieved there in a few short years, a great deal of benefit can be gained not only for the respective provincial coffers, but for the vastly improved safety of their people. 

Do leaders in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces have the humility, the courage and the ability to do this? If it can't come during a time of Canadian existential crisis, when pan-provincial cooperation should be at its peak, when will it happen?

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