FOUR NEW MEMBERS JOIN THE CANADIAN GAMING ASSOCIATION’S BOARD

Dave Schwab Sports Betting Expert

3 minute read

The whole of the online gaming industry in Canada is expanding at an accelerated pace these days. This can mainly be attributed to the recent change in law for legal betting on sports.

In direct response to this growth, the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA) has announced that it will expand the current board of directors with four new members.

One of those new members will be Scott Burton. He is the chief executive with FansUnite Entertainment. This followed last year’s merger with Askott Entertainment.

Also new to the CGA board is Neil Erlick. He is the chief corporate development officer at Nuvei. This is an electric payment processing company based in Montreal.

The third new member of CGA’s board is Jeffery Haas. He currently holds the role of senior vice president of international strategy for DraftKings. This is an interesting development as the Boston-based sportsbook enters the Canadian sports betting market through Ontario.

The final addition to the CGA board is Chuck Keeling. As part of the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, he holds the role of executive vice president of stakeholder relations and responsible gaming.

Each new member brings a distinct skill set to the board in light of the current industry growth and expansion. The chair of the CGA is Carrie Kormos. She had this to say about the new appointees:

“That the CGA board added four new members is a testament to the Association’s exponential growth in 2021. We welcomed 18 new members and diversified by adding sports betting and esports operators, payment companies and many non-gaming suppliers.”

She went on to add:

“This will provide the CGA with an opportunity to act as a convenor for the industry as a whole and build collaboration during this exciting period in Canadian gaming.”

As president and chief executive of the CGA, Paul Burns added the following insight as part of a recent release:

“These seasoned professionals have strong track records as trusted leaders in the gaming industry, and they will provide invaluable insight as we look to launch a regulated iGaming market in Ontario and single-event sports betting across Canada.”

The gold rush is on in Ontario as Canada’s most populated province. Most of the other Canadian provinces have turned to their existing lottery operations to implement legal single-game betting on sports.

Ontario will go a different route by opening up the marketplace to commercial sportsbook operators. US-based operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings have been busy making plans to offer their mobile betting apps to Ontario sports bettors.

The overall potential of this sports betting market alone makes Canada a very attractive option for expansion in the entire North American legal sports betting industry.

Written by Dave Schwab, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert. You can learn more about our author's expertise here.

Dave Schwab

Dave Schwab has been covering the sports betting industry for the past 12 years as the main focus of his specialty marketing company for online content. This endeavor followed a previous career in the field of sales and marketing in the wholesaling sector.Most of his weekly pieces focus on the rapidly expanding legal US sports betting industry. However, he still does extensive work covering betting angles that can provide a competitive edge to avid players. Dave believes that it is always a challenge to take past results and current form to try and correctly determine a future result. Sports brings out the unpredictability in what should be a fairly predictable outcome based on the stats, facts and recent trends in a particular matchup. More from Dave Schwab