Afleveringen
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Back in January, when we were still doing the LinkedIn Audio thing on Thursday afternoons, a Gaming News Canada Show panel covered a lot of real estate over 60 minutes.
Mitch Davidson, the chief of staff for iGaming Ontario, joined us to provide some thoughts on the best numbers yet from the regulated business of sports wagering and online gaming in iGO’s latest quarterly market performance report. Amanda Brewer and Phill Gray also hopped into that conversation, including a lookahead to 2024.
Parleh Media Group co-founder/CEO Mark Silver and Eric Herd – founder of A2Z Ventures and the former head honcho at The Post Game – weighed in on the departure of Erika Ayers Badans as CEO of Barstool Sports and The Action Network grand poobah Patrick Keane. We also asked Herd and Silver to analyze the potential acquisition of bankruptcy-bound Diamond Sports Group by Amazon.
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In early August iGaming Ontario let it be known that a joint bid by Integrity Compliance 360 and Australian company IXUP had been awarded the contract to develop a centralized self-exclusion system for Ontario’s regulated online sports betting and igaming marketplace.
Catherine Jarmain, the director of industry programs and monitoring for iGaming Ontario, and IC360 president Eric Frank joined the podcast to discuss the project to build on the existing player protections in Ontario – a program considered to be overdue by operators and others following the province’s legal gambling industry.
Both Jarmain and Frank also paid tribute to Martha Otton, a week after iGO announced that its executive director would be retiring at the end of the year. As Dave Briggs reported last week in the Gaming News Canada newsletter presented by GBG Plc, Otton’s departure is being delayed until March while her successor is found.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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On the roller-coaster that is the current state of sports media in North America, the folks at The GIST are among the ones enjoying the ride.
In October, “the revolutionary and inclusive sports media brand” announced it had reached one million subscribers across its various and sundry platforms. It’s most likely not a coincidence that the milestone was reached in a year highlighted by the overwhelming impact of basketball superstar Caitlin Clark on both the NCAA women’s hoops game, and the WNBA, along with a dominant performance by Canadian(including swimmer Summer McIntosh, who was a no-brainer choice to receive the Northern Star Award as the country’s athlete of the year) and American women at the Paris Olympics.
Ellen Hyslop, the co-founder and head of content for The GIST, made her maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc to talk about the company’s evolution since its creation in 2017. She discussed with host Steve McAllister the “Caitlin Clark effect” - including Clark’s recent selection as TIME Magazine’s athlete of the year – the arrival of a North American women’s professional hockey league, and support of women’s sports from brands and corporations. Our conversation also included the appetite “GISTers” have for the NFL and other major professional sports.
Hyslop spoke with McAllister in July 2021 for a Toronto Star column about sports and sports betting, so we revisited that topic and the partnerships The GIST have had with sportsbook operators. Finally, she gave us a (tiny) glimpse into what GIST subscribers can expect in 2025.
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Eighteen years ago, a former Microsoft engineer was tuned in to the changing landscape of sports broadcasting rights and the opportunity to guide sports fans through the expanding maze.
That bit of prescience prompted Mark Phillip to create Are You Watching This?! which today provides real-time data for professional and U.S. college sports around the world. In 2019, after the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) to legalize expanded sports betting in the U.S. of A., Phillip founded MetaBet to deliver sports wagering technology to media companies.
On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc, Phillip spoke with host Steve McAllister about the growth of both companies – and also his I Can’t Find The Game! brand – and both the challenges and opportunities in an ever-expanding media rights world that this season added NHL games on Prime Video in Canada, and speculation on what the NHL broadcasting landscape will look like in our home and native land when the Rogers deal expires in 2026.
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The latest shoe to drop on the current tempest around regulated gambling in North America happened yesterday when the U.S. Senate for the Judiciary announced a America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Gambling hearing for Tuesday, Dec. 16.
All of the ruckus south of the border around sports betting and online gaming, including the angst around problem gambling, sports betting advertising – which is also happening in our home and native land - daily fantasy sports, and sweepstakes has attracted the attention of elected officials, traditional media, mental health advocates and others. So, we welcomed back Chris Grove to lend his voice of reason to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.
Grove, a co-founder of Acies Investments and partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, provided a plethora of measured insight on the current brouhaha, including:
· The interest in the industry from politicians and mainstream journalists should elicit more than a raised-eyebrow reaction from the industry;
· Some suggestions for industry stakeholders in responding to the scrutiny;
· The good work being done by the American Gaming Association – which recently added athlete harassment to its campaign around betting responsibly - to inform and educate folks on regulated gambling
· The industry needing to catch its collective breath on issues such as expanding legal online casino across the U.S.
Grove, the founder of Legal Sports Reports, discussed the challenges that journalists face in newsrooms and editorial departments that have shrunk in the U.S. and Canada. He also talked about the “Google effect” on gambling affiliates that led companies such as Catena Media to lay off journalists this fall (Dustin Gouker, in his Closing Line newsletter, created a spreadsheets of journalists available for hire). And he spoke about the potential impact of a second Donald Trump administration on the industry.
Finally, we asked the industry veteran about the current appetite for funding startups and his thoughts on the M&A landscape in 2024.
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The continuing rise in esports betting – expected to hit $2.5 billion (U.S.) in 2024 – and the partnership between Bet99 and PandaScore which was announced last week – prompted us to bring back Steven Salz to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.
The founder and CEO of Rivalry, which cut its teeth at inception on esports wagering back in 2017, answered our questions about the still-growing engagement by fans and bettors around Fortnite, CounterStrike, Dota2, Valorant, etc. That conversation reminded us of our first encounter with Salz back in 2022 just after the opening of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming market, when he compared Rivalry with Wealthsimple and Robinhood when referring to its customer base.
So, that led us to get Salz’s thoughts on the recent rumbling about Robinhood contemplating a deeper dive into wagering in the aftermath of the U.S. election. He also addressed the growing popularity of crypto as the currency of choice among gamblers, including among the offshore casino industry, and Rivalry’s focus on accelerating its position as a “global, crypto-native operator”. (Salz reminded us that the AGCO’s rules around deposits in Ontario’s legal gambling business forbid the use of crypto).
Rivalry has undergone a major transformation in 2024 and Salz expanded on the company’s release of its latest financial results at the end of November. Finally, he gave us some parting thoughts about Ontario emerging as a good story for the company over the past year.
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While the snow was flying outside of Gaming News Canada HQ on the shores of Lake Huron earlier this week, your humble host fired up the virtual studio to welcome Dave Briggs, the former managing editor at Catena Editor and editor interim of the Gaming News Canada newsletter, for an unplugged/unvarnished/unfiltered episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc.
Instead of opening up our notepads, Briggs and yours truly conversed on a number of topics about the business of sports betting and gaming, including:
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Three days of arguments around the expanding of daily fantasy sports and online poker in Ontario’s regulated gambling industry were heard in the province’s court of appeal last week with a decision by the five-judge panel not expected until the new year. The legal beagles piled up the billable hours on behalf of their clients, including the Douglas Ford government, sports betting and gaming businesses, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, and the four provincial lottery and gaming entities that make up the Canadian Lottery Coalition.
Among the interested observers in the courthouse proceedings was Canadian Gaming Association senior advisor Amanda Brewer, who made her return to the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by GBG Plc (welcome back to our presenting sponsor). Brewer provided her take on what she saw and heard last week and the scenarios that could play out once the panel reaches a decision.
We also asked Brewer for her thoughts on the continued debate around sports betting advertising in our home and native land, what’s news in Alberta (the province’s Minister of Red Tape Reduction last week took aim at Bodog), and iGaming Ontario’s search for a president and chief executive officer, who’s expected to move into Martha Otton’s chair some time in the first quarter of 2025.
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These are heady times for the British Columbia Lottery Corporation. Just weeks after hosting its annual New Horizons in Safer Gambling conference, BCLC was awarded the Best Flagship Responsible Gaming Award – Level 4 in Paris at the World Lottery Association’s annual global summit. So, we invited the corp’s director of player health, Ryan McCarthy to make his return to the Gaming News Canada Show.
McCarthy, who joined BCLC in August 2022, spoke about the recognition by the WLA, and his three key takeaways from the latest New Horizons conference. Highlighted was a keynote address by Dr. Shawn DuBravac on Gambling on the Safer Side: A Different Approach to Creating Competitive Advantage. He also dug into the continued changes around responsible gaming involving not only BCLC, but other provincial lottery and gaming corporations, operators, regulators and, of course, players. For BCLC, that includes its highly acclaimed GameSense initiative which is also used by operators including MGM Resorts and BetMGM.
Our conversation not surprisingly included a segment on artificial intelligence. We also asked McCarthy about the collaboration between player health advocates, revenue teams and others within BCLC to maintain balance between growing the business and prioritizing protecting customers.
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Sporttrade and its CEO are carving their own path through the sports betting business
This fall, New Jersey-based online sports wagering business Sporttrade announced the launch of its app in Virginia, the fifth U.S. state where the seven-year-old company is operating. Chief executive officer Alex Kane founded Sporttrade in 2017, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).
Kane made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show and told the story of the paralegal assistant who got into the sports betting and technology industry. He also explained the differences between the Sporttrade apps and other online sportsbooks, and the company’s deliberate strategy in building its business.
Kane also offered his thoughts on the existing regulated industry in Ontario, and the conversations he’s had with Jay Welbourn, the senior manager of technology and compliance for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, about the province’s acclaimed competitive and legal gaming industry. And, of course, we prodded him for some thoughts and layers on the state of regulated gambling in the U.S. – included discussion in some states right now about adjusting the tax rates on legal gambling operators – and the soon-to-come regulated business in Alberta.
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The latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show is one of the breaking news variety.
On the eve of next week’s Kioti National in St. John’s, the Grand Slam of Curling getting together with ALT Sports Data on a multi-layered partnership highlighted by growth and innovation around making the sport more wagering-friendly and also supporting the CGOS’ efforts to grow curling internationally.
"Our partnership with ALT Sports Data will open up a new world of engagement for curling fans; where real-time insights, advanced analytics, and seamless betting experiences come together to help elevate the sport,” Nic Sulsky, the co-founder and CEO of The Curling Group, which acquired the series from Sportsnet in April, said in a media dispatch. “As the popularity of curling continues to rise internationally, our collaboration with ALT Sports Data will allow us to enhance the fan experience while unlocking new growth opportunities within untapped markets.”
Sulsky and Michael Jordan, the co-founder and head of product for ALT Sports Data, joined us on the podcast to dig a little deeper into the details of the partnership – which has a betting element. The California-based business has a rather lengthy list of partnerships with non-traditional sports organizations, including the World Surf League, the Disc Golf Pro Tour and Power Slap while providing data to many of the biggest brands in sports betting. The deal with the CGOS includes ALT Sports Data becoming the exclusive global partner of data for sports betting worldwide.
We spoke with Sulsky, who left his post as chief commercial officer of PointsBet Canada to co-found The Curling Group, about the changes that have already taken place under the GCOS’s new ownership, the growth of the series’ streaming audience, and the appetite by the curlers and their coaches for advanced analytics.
Sulsky, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgins Lymphoma in 2009, will be on The Rock next week and will don his road gear once again to run and raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society’s Curl for Cancer campaign.
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There’s been a renewed flurry of media coverage lately around the legal gambling industry in the true north, strong and free, including:
· An editorial by The Globe and Mail calling on the Justin Trudeau government to pass Bill S-269 before our elected federal officials head home for the holidays:
· An interview by Matt Galloway of CBC’s The Current with a problem gambler in the aftermath of a study released by the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling;
· A St. Albert Gazette piece on the relationship between igaming, advertising and problem gambling;
· And just yesterday, this “Is the $11 billion online sportsbook bubble about to burst?” tome from the keyboard of David Hill for Rolling Stone.
At the same time, the Canadian Gaming Association just made public research it commissioned North American advertising intelligence company MediaRadar to conduct on advertising by operators in Ontario’s regulated market. The research shows a decrease in the amount of advertising spend by operators of online sports betting and gaming products since the province’s market opened its doors in April 2022.
Paul Burns, the CGA’s president and CEO, returned to the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss the latest research, and also respond to the latest coverage by the Globe and CBC (the CGA also posted a response on LinkedIn to the Globe editorial). Burns also addressed the efforts the industry have made around responsible gambling while yet again emphasizing the operators’ multi-layered actions to keep children from accessing their products. He also spoke about the challenges in front of advocates of Bill S-269 to have a national framework for sports betting advertising to take effect.
He also spoke about the recent Royal Assent given by the Douglas Ford government to the iGaming Ontario Act, which will separate iGO from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. We also asked Burns for his thoughts on what background and skill set the iGO board of directors and its recruiting firm should be seeking in the president and CEO who will replace Martha Otton when the woman responsible for leading the charge to opening the Ontario market in the spring of 2022 retires at year’s end.
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The latest financial results released over the past week or so by the likes of Sportradar, Genius Sports, DraftKings,theScore Bet and Flutter Entertainment all refer to the continued increase in activity by sports bettors when it comes to in-play/live wagering.
From Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke, in his prepared statements in a call with analysts when the data/technology/broadcast giants put forth its Q3 2024 financials on Tuesday: “In-play wagering now represents 30% of total NFL handle—up from roughly 25% the prior season—representing a meaningful step in the right direction, which we always expected.”
Phill Gray, the former long-time head trader for Sports Interaction and regular guest on the Gaming News Canada Show, returned to the podcast to deliver his thoughts and layers on the expanded in-play and same game parlay betting products, how sportsbooks are creating those markets in real time and the shifting role of traders with the operators. Gray also talked about the three types of bettors today, the acknowledgment by books that the customers did pretty darn well in October, and he offered his take on a new report by Bettometrics analyzing suspension times between top operators for Week 8 of the U.S. college football season, and Week 9 games in the National Football League.
Gray also weighed in on the ongoing debate around limiting, and the overwhelming popularity beyond the United States for wagering on the recent U.S. elections.
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While Swifties prepare to gather in Toronto next week for their beloved songstress’s six concerts, the Westin Harbour Castle will be home for three days to leaders in the sports industry from across North America - including NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and MLSE president/CEO Keith Pelley – for the 17th annual PrimeTime sports management conference.
Among the plethora of panels that will take place beginning Sunday (Nov. 10) is a Developments in Sports Betting discussion with Parleh Media Group CEO/co-founder Mark Silver holding the moderator’s mic. Silver will be joined by Tom Burdakin, the vice president of marketing, Canada, for FanDuel; Daniel Caufield, the head of business development and partnerships at Woodbine Entertainment; Tyler Puley, the director of marketing communications and brand experience at OLG; and Michael Zitney, the director of brand and content for Entain Group.
Ahead of the conference and the Swifties invasion, your humble host made the trip to Toronto this week for a pre-PrimeTime podcast with the aforementioned panelists and Silver. Among the topics covered:
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These aren’t the best of times for affiliates in the business of gambling, as reflected by the recent news involving XL Media, Catena Media and Better Collective.
Straight to the Point publisher/editor Steve Ruddock returned to the Gaming News Canada Show. Ruddock walked us through his experiences in the affiliates industry over the past 15 years, and discussed with your humble host the decision by Catena Media and Better Collective to let go journalists covering the industry and what’s next in the affiliate space. That also led to a lengthy discussion around coverage of the sports betting and gaming industry since the overturning of PASPA by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018.
The wild and crazy presidential election in the U.S. has attracted the interest of 16 sportsbooks – including OLG - in Ontario’s regulated marketplace. We asked Ruddock about the participation by Robinhood, Kalshi and Polymarket in predicting the Harris-Trump battle, and the potential impact the next U.S. federal government will have on the country’s legal gambling landscape.
Last but not least, the debate continues about the competition/collaboration of retail and online gambling, so we asked our guest for his two cents on the topic.
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The Responsible Gambling Council recently released its 2023-24 annual report, which included 32 igaming sites across 20 operators being accredited through the council’s RG Check program over the past year, and the Ontario government delivering an unprecedented $9 million investment to the Responsible Internet Gambling Fund over three years.
Shelley White, who is leaving the RGC after an eight-year tenure as its chief executive officer at the end of the year, and VP, marketing and communications Elaine McDougall joined us for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. White and McDougall dug a little deeper into the latest annual report, and spoke with us about:
White also let us know that the RGC is expected to announce her success by the end of November, and gave us some thoughts on her eight-year run. McDougall also spoke about the impact White has had on the council in bringing a much-appreciated cultural shift to the organization and leading its evolution as a business.
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Amazon Prime dropped the puck on its NHL digital streaming journey across Canada over the past week, first with the debut of NHL Coast to Coast last Thursday followed by Prime Monday Night Hockey while we were awakening from our Thanksgiving turkey coma.
Sports Interaction has a segment in the first hour of the Thursday NHL Coast to Coast broadcast. To learn more about the Homegrown Bet of the Night segment, veteran sports broadcaster David Bastl – now SIA’s chief betting officer – was our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show. Bastl provided more details on the SIA integration (with a helping hand on the production end from Parleh Media Group) into the Amazon Prime hockey broadcasts – Thursday nights deliver a Red Zone-like experience for NHL fans – and revisited his first picks from opening night.
We also asked Bastl about the ongoing evolution of professional sports leagues, rightsholders and sports wagering operators when it comes to integrating betting information and insight into a game broadcast – including The Locker Room show produced by Homestand and available on the Sports Interaction app. He also spoke about his background in media and betting, including his work on the Inside the Lines NFL betting show, and The Mike Richards Show in the early years of TSN Radio.
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It turns out that the road to regulated sports betting and online gaming in Alberta has hit a pothole or two.
Tom Nightingale of Canadian Gaming Business reported Monday that more time is needed for the provincial government in the land of the Oilers and Flames to meet with various stakeholders with potential skin in the game of a legal gambling marketplace. For further context on this story, Jessica Welman – the editor-in-chief of both SBC Americas and Canadian Gaming Business – made her return to the Gaming News Canada Show.
Welman joined GNCS host Steve McAllister before getting on yet another plane. . . this time to Las Vegas for this week’s Global Gaming Expo, to provide her insight on a few topics, including:
· Some key takeaways from the recent SBC conference in Lisbon
· Teeing up G2E this week
· The buzz around sweepstakes in the U.S. of A. these days, including her recent conversation with Novig co-founder/CEO Jacob Fortinsky
· The latest on efforts in the Canadian Senate to pass a bill which would create a framework for sports betting advertising in our home and native land
· And other matters pertaining to legal gambling in the U.S., including what’s happening (or not) in California, Texas and Florida.
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The Senate Committee on Transport and Communications resumed hearing from witnesses at the beginning of October with the proposed Bill-269 to create a national framework for advertising on sports betting. Among the folks making the trek to the nation’s capital to appear in front of the committee was Canadian Gaming Association grand poobah Paul Burns.
Burns returned to the Gaming News Canada Show to discuss his appearance in Ottawa, and the continued evolution of advertising in Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming marketplace. From Tom Nightingale’s reporting in Canadian Gaming Business:
Burns had argued in his opening statement that he doesn’t believe S-269 is necessary, as most of what the bill aims to do is already being done. In particular, he pointed to Ontario’s advertising restrictions and stipulations around responsible gaming messaging, noting that anecdotally, Ontario has seen a far higher uptake of RG messaging and practical tools than operators are legally required to offer.
“There’s been a lot of emotional discussion about gaming advertising over the last couple of years because people have seen more of it,” noted Burns. “But there’s also been some absence of facts and data and understanding.”
The CGA president/CEO also provided an update on the road to regulation in Alberta, including Minister Dale Nally’s pending appearance on a panel Wednesday alongside Burns, AGCO chief Dr. Karin Schnarr and iGaming Ontario executive director Martha Otton (you can expect the soon-to-retire iGO ED will deliver the latest quarterly results on the Ontario industry) at this week’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
We also asked Burns for his thoughts on the state of regulated gambling today across the true north, strong and free.
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Since Ontario’s regulated gaming industry opened its doors in April 2022, there’s been a steady rise in the popularity and corresponding revenue from online gaming.
Paul Adams, the director of marketing operations for BetMGM, made his maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show alongside the company’s PR/data insights manager John Ewing for a chin wag about the operator’s increasing investment in igaming via the launch of Lightning Storm and WOF Casino, and exclusive slots based on movies and TV Shows such as The Godfather and Charlie’s Angels. Adams also got into the partnership announced this summer between BetMGM and gaming casino content creator Brian Christopher.
Ewing returned to the podcast for a conversation on the wave of wagering around the early weeks of the National Football League season, and how its customers in Ontario engaging in four-down football. We also asked Ewing about the impact Shohei Ohtani’s season for the ages has had on the business of betting, and the potential excitement around a Dodgers (Ohtani)-Yankees (Aaron Judge) World Series.
Finally, Adams confirmed that BetMGM is among the operators paying close attention to plans for launching a regulated sports betting and online gaming marketplace in Alberta (we recommend our recent GNCS episode with Amanda Brewer and Phill Gray for more on the Alberta situation).
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