Operators and providers had until Halloween to prevent Ontarioians from providing online sports betting sites and casinos not authorized by provincial authorities, or companies would threaten to be blocked from the province’s regulated market.
Comments from Ontario’s online sports regulator recommend that many operators are taking the watchdog’s warnings about the province’s unregulated market exit very seriously.
Operators and providers had until Halloween to prevent Ontarioians from providing online sports betting sites and casinos not authorized by provincial authorities, or companies would threaten to be blocked from the province’s regulated market.
The Ontario Alcohol and Gaming Commission (AGCO) imposed the start on Monday, and the regulator told Covers on Wednesday that a total of 17 operators left Ontario’s unregulated market over the past two days “in direct response” to the new rule.
These operators are iGaming corporations that are still going through the needs to launch into Ontario’s competitive market for legal sports betting, online casino games and poker. One of them is BetRegal, which told Covers on Tuesday that it stopped accepting bets from provincial players as it progressed through the licensing process.
Operators who one day want to sign up for Ontario’s regulated market now find themselves in a major threat if they make the decision to bet on players in the province without regulatory approval. It is also necessary to start hunting over their shoulders.
“As always, AGCO will take appropriate regulatory action in the event of non-compliance, adding compliance measures where appropriate,” the regulator’s communications team told Covers in an email. regulators to address residual activity in the unregulated market in Ontario.
The new popular entry into force marks the end of the “transition period” in Ontario, in which operators can accept bets from Ontarians while working to obtain an iGaming recording from AGCO and sign an advertising contract with iGaming Ontario, a government. . agency. The registration and operator agreement are the two key steps for corporations looking to enter the province’s regulated iGaming market, which went live in April.
The Ontario government will expand an online gaming market for personal sector operators in the first example to curb the “grey market” betting prevalent in the province.
For years, Ontarians have wagered billions of dollars a year on regulated and licensed websites or outside the province, but not through the province itself. coverage of clients and create a new source of profit for the Ontario government.
“AGCO has established a procedure for existing operators and suppliers in the unregulated placeplaceplace market to transition to the regulated placeplaceplace market without causing significant disruption to its Ontario customers,” the regulator said Wednesday. “With the opening of the application procedure in September 2021 and the placeplaceplace market set to be launched in April 2022, gambling-related operators and providers have had a moderate amount of time to register with Ontario’s regulated market in a transparent manner. “
The AGCO added that there are now 36 operators on Ontario’s regulated market and 28 of them were active in the past in the province’s unregulated market. the regulated market of the province.
However, the slowness with which some operators obtained their registrations, signed their contracts and then, despite everything that was introduced into the Ontario online gaming market, angered some of the early participants in the framework. accepted bets from Ontarians after applying for or receiving registration from AGCO and was not officially part of the regulated market.
The AGCO nevertheless made the decision to impose a deadline on the “transition period” of the province and chose October 31 for the new popular to take effect. It says its workers have been working in tandem with incumbents and applicants who were active in the unregulated market to perceive what was coming.
Several operators have embarked on Ontario’s regulatory framework since AGCO’s warning, adding Bet99 and Pinnacle.
As of Wednesday, 35 operators were operating in Ontario’s regulated online gaming market, which remains the only one of its kind in Canada. Of these, more than 25 offer or intend to offer online sports to Ontarians.
“In addition to those activities, AGCO continues to have registered interaction providers to ensure they meet their legal responsibility to terminate all business relationships with respect to unregulated residual sites in Ontario,” AGCO said in its email to Covers. Progress has been made through registered providers in their games and other technologies from sites not regulated to date. “