2022: The year of North American sports betting

During the past twelve months, the North American continent has undergone several reforms to enable, encourage and make accessible the joys of sports betting. Canada, has in particular, worked hard to extend gambling markets to cover the American football league through their sportsbooks and single game betting legislating.

All over the world, sports betting has gained increasing attention and span through the accessibility of online gambling. Not only has the digitalization of gambling made it easy for regular sports bettors to place their bets, but it also increases exposure for casino players. This happens both through the accessibility of betting on various online casinos, as well as through the increasing virtual conversations on betting on social media platforms such as Twitter.

More information about online casinos in Canada can be found here.

The increased accessibility of gambling has paired well with several North American reforms in both Canada and the United States. This includes the legalization of single game betting in Canada and the US legalization of sports betting in over 10 different states including New York. The reforms aim to bring in taxable revenues on physical and virtual gambling to finance better gambling regulations and community projects.

Major Canadian gambling reforms

Single Game Betting

The Canadian government passed a major sports betting enabling reform last year in terms of legalizing single game betting. The bill went into effect in August and allowed Canadians to finally leave the parley bet system. Parley betting entails betting on up to three games simultaneously, with winnings available only if you get all three games right. Single game betting tends to be favourable as the odds of winning increase drastically, as well as the increased scope on types of bets, including single athlete statistics etc.

The lack of single game betting has led to a large amount of betting on the grey and black markets. According to the federal government, Canadians used to spend $10 billion on illegal single game betting every year. The idea behind the bill is to be able to tax the revenue of legalized betting to better regulate and encourage Canadian betting providers.

OLG official partnership with NFL

Another great Canadian gambling reform came as a direct consequence of the single game betting legalization. The signing of the Ontario Lottery and Gambling Corporation (OLG) resulted in it being the first ever Canadian sportsbook tied to the US National Football League (NFL). The deal is a five-year contract and will finally enable Canadians to take part in one of the largest betting events in the world, which the Americans call the “gambling national holiday”, also known as the Super Bowl.

Not only will OLG be in charge of the sportsbook-related material for the NFL, but they have also launched a show called the #OLGGamePlan. The show will inform Canadian bettors of various game analyses, picks, and odds as well as offer expert interviews. For example, on their launch on February 9^th, the Wednesday before the Super Bowl, they chatted with four-time Super Bowl champion Joe Montana. The show will air on a weekly basis.

Major American gambling reforms

The Canadian neighbours are also trying to up their gambling game. The sports giant that is the United States does not have a federally legalized sports betting law. Rather it is up to the individual states to set the regulations on casino and betting issues. However, gambling is rising in popularity and in the past 12 months alone ten states have legalized sports betting. This totals out to 32 states and the District of Columbia as gambling-friendly regions.

However, not all legalized gambling states have online gambling accounted for. In the newest addition of betting-friendly states, New York, only four betting apps were licensed this spring. The legalization of online betting turned out to be successful: in the opening weekend alone over 1,2 million accounts were created which resulted in a 150-billion-dollar revenue. This does not include the $200 million in license fees.

Californian monopolies threaten the spread of online gambling

The next big gambling state in transition is California. Several gambling bills are on the ballot for this winter, including the legalization of online betting. However, many of the local game rooms might go out of business and hurt entire town economies, especially if the bill giving online monopoly to the native American casinos goes through. The election will take place in November of this year.

Roger Griffith

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