Posted on: December 13, 2024, 10:57h.
Last updated on: December 13, 2024, 10:57h.
Last week, the Auditor General of Ontario issued a report applauding the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation for the progress they’ve made in the face of stiff competitive winds over the past 19 months.
The crown corporation had no choice but to change their business practice when the commercial, competitive igaming market opened in Ontario in 2022. According to iGaming Ontario there are now 50 licensed operators in the province, including most the major brands, like FanDuel, BetMGM and DraftKings.
Casino and Sports Betting Revenue Up
“In terms of growth, OLG has continued to have record breaking growth in the digital business and has been able to maintain above than expected market share,” said OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti. “Customer trust in our brand is important in crowded field of competitors.”
OLG has three lines of business – lottery (retail), land-based gaming (the crown corporation conducts and manages gaming at 30 casino gaming facilities and 37 charitable gaming centres) and digital gaming (iCasino, iLottery and iSports).
OLG reports their own total gross online casino and sports betting revenue – in FY 2023-24 they reported $630 million, up from $561 in 2022-23.
Canadian Gaming: Market Share Stats
The Ontario private market, not including OLG, saw $64 billion in total wagers in FY 2023-24 (April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024), $2.4 billion in gaming revenue.
According to H2 Gambling Capital – the global specialist gambling sector market data provider – OLG has been holding their ground. Commercial operators in Ontario have a 78% market share, while OLG has 16%, and offshore platforms have 5%.
H2 utilizes sources like web traffic, affiliate traffic and search volume data to estimate market size and growth rates in regulated markets where there is no official data.
H2: Bet365 Leads the Charge
Their data sent to Casino.org today shows bet365 with a 15% market share in FY 2024, followed by FanDuel (13%) and Betano (9%). Super Group comes in at 8%, followed by BetMGM, Entain and BetRivers, at 7% each.
The Auditor General, Shelley Spence, issued the annual report last week, the follow-up to recommendations made to OLG in a casinos, lotteries and internet gaming performance audit report in 2022 after the regulated market went live, to make OLG more competitive in the new environment.
Implementing Recommendations
According to the AG Report, as of Nov. 15, 2024, OLG had fully implemented 32% (17) of those recommended actions, and are in the process of implementing 38% (20).
Recommendations that OLG has implemented include the introduction of more igaming casino products and the timeline for their introduction, the expansion of more live game offerings (poker, blackjack) in collaboration with other provinces, assessing OLG’s staffing numbers to determine if that’s reasonable in relation to OLG’s mandate and responsibilities, break out casino operator fees as a separate line item in financial reporting to taxpayers, as well as integrate self-exclusion programs across OLG products.
New Casino Product
According to the report:
We found that in 2023, OLG developed a comprehensive strategy on the introduction of new products and the timeline for their introduction. As part of this strategy since our 2022 audit, OLG began introducing games every week with new features to drive engagement. Between February 1, 2024, and April 30, 2024, OLG introduced 80 new games or about six new games per week.”
In June 2023, OLG established a new team to explore potential new products, including real-time games. Live games are being offered from a studio shared with other provincial lotteries, encompassing a variety of table games.”
As of June 2024, OLG was exploring options for new product offerings and whether to join a national network or keep the product within a specific region. A potential implementation of the new option is expected by April 2025.
Level Playing Field
OLG Chief Gaming Officer Dave Pridmore has said in the past that the competitive market has challenged OLG to think differently about their product offerings and operations, while the open market levelled the playing field – everyone has to adhere to the same rules.
“We thank the Auditor General of Ontario for the findings and recommendations in previous audits of OLG — as well as the follow up observations,” said Bitonti. “We always welcome independent reviews of our business, which contribute to continuous improvement of our operations and performance.
“OLG has been actively working to implement the AG’s recommendations — close to 80 per cent of the recommended actions have been fully implement or are in the process of being implemented. As the AG indicated, six recommendations are no longer applicable (for example, asking casino operators for consent to publicly disclose game payout data by casino, which the operators said no to).
“There are seven recommended actions that won’t be implemented for specific reasons, as outlined in our response to the AG (for example deciding not to implement additional track and monitor employee utilization and efficiency processes for all employees).”
