Bill C-218 has passed in the senate and now awaits Royal Assent.
The Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act will legalize single-event sports betting.
The Private Members bill was introduced by Saskatoon—Grasswood Conservative MP Kevin Waugh who calls this a victory for Canadian sport, sport fans, and businesses.
“The betters in the country are tired of parlay betting. So with their wallets they left. They either found the bookies or criminal activity to do their single game betting with or they went onto these illegal websites that are outside the country and deposited up to $14 billion a year and we’re not seeing any of the taxation from that.”
Waugh says British Columbia is likely to be one of the first provinces to begin offering single game betting. “Well I think BC is on top of every jurisdiction in this country and they will probably want to get going soon because they have been working very hard behind the scenes on their playnow.com app. I’m excited for those in BC that follow the Whitecaps, the Canucks and the Lions because those three franchises will get a lot of attention with this Bill.”
Waugh is hopeful that provincial governments will invest more into mental health and addictions programs with the increased dollars that will be received through this new revenue source. “Especially mental health right now. We have seen the last 15/16 months, people have really been locked down and it has been hard on people. So this is a new source of revenue coming to the governments that they haven’t had cause it’s been offshore or underground and I am hoping they will take their fair share of this and put it into those addiction and those mental health areas that are desperately needed in the country. Not only in B.C., but in every place in this country.”
Operators are welcoming the news
“Once the Bill receives royal assent (which could likely be later this week), we will enable single-event bets on PlayNow.com,” according to a brief statement from BCLC. Earlier this year its Director of e-Gaming Stewart Groumoutis said not having single event betting is costing British Columbians more than $100 million. “There’s a lot of different ways of trying to predict what the size of the market is. It’s obviously very difficult with illegal operators, we don’t have visibility into their play. However, we have looked at it as an opportunity between $125 million to $175 million in additional revenue for the province of BC.” Waugh believes that is a very low estimate.
DraftKings is an American daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting operator. In an email its Vice President of Government Affairs and Associate General Counsel Griffin Finan says “DraftKings has been part of the Canadian sports culture for many years, and, through legalized sports betting, the company has another opportunity to further change the way fans in the country engage with their favorite teams, players and leagues. While we understand there are many steps to come, we look forward to working closely with officials in each province as they continue to develop their approach to legalized sports betting. As a customer-centric company, we’re excited for the potential opportunity to deliver the DraftKings sports betting experience to Canadian sports fans.”
