Legal commercial gaming began in Ontario in April. Ontario is North America’s most populated legal online casino gaming jurisdiction.
The $4.3bn generated around $193m in operator revenue. There are 24 companies licensed to accept online casino bets and/or sports wagers, which now operate across 42 sites.
There are also now more than 628,000 registered active player commercial iGaming accounts across all sites, not necessarily individual players, up from around 500,000 at the end of the previous quarter. The average monthly spend per active player account was nearly $103, up from $86 the quarter prior.
Provincial gaming officials said Wednesday they expect those figures to increase as more operators come online. Speaking in Las Vegas at Wednesday’s Global Gaming Expo, iGaming Ontario Executive Director Martha Otton said there were more than 40 operators still waiting for licensure.
“A common question I get is, ‘are you pleased with what you’ve seen in the Ontario market so far?’,” Otton said. “It looks like yes, definitely. We are.”
Assuming all applicants are licensed, there would be more than 60 individual digital commercial gaming operators in Ontario, more than double the total of any other US or Canadian jurisdiction.
Ontario commercial iGaming and online sports betting revenue was $6b (Canadian) between July 1 and Sept 30, generating $267m in total gaming revenue; there were 24 operators live across 42 sites in that time with more on the way, Ontario gaming officials said during G2E today
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) October 12, 2022
Ontario is permitting operators that accepted bets before the province approved regulated commercial gaming to apply for licensure, unlike the US. Ontario gaming officials said that the majority of current licensees as well as future applicants operated in the former “grey” gaming market.
The grey operators have until the end of the month to submit their licensure and cease operators or they will be prohibited from entering the province legally in the future.
Ontario’s quarterly gaming revenue reports do not break down financial totals by individual operators. Otton told reporters Wednesday that the regulated commercial gaming market was still in its early stages and there was no timeline for when – or if – gaming officials would publicly disclose figures by individual operators.
Largely because of their years operating in the grey market, many existing operators are believed to be among the market share leaders in Ontario. European gaming giant bet365 has been among the most downloaded apps, gaming or otherwise, in the province in the weeks after the regulated commercial gaming revenue launch earlier this year.
TheScore Bet has also been among the major download leaders, one of the few metrics currently available to judge Ontario’s iGaming market share. Penn Entertainment acquired theScore Bet, its parent media company and its proprietary tech for $2bn last year.