Canadian Single-Event Sports Betting Market Outlook

Dave Schwab Sports Betting Expert

3 minute read

Sports betting in Canada has been legal for several decades with one major caveat. Prior to August of 2021, the only legal way to bet on the games was through multi-team parlay wagers.

The Canadian government amended those laws and betting on single events became legal. At the time, provincial government-owned lottery corporations were responsible for instituting the change. In the province of Ontario, PROLINE+ was the only online sports betting and iGaming platform.

As Canada’s most populated province, Ontario decided to explore alternative ways to offer legal sports betting. The commercial sector of the province’s online sports betting industry continues to prepare for an official launch on April 4.

The combination of single-event sports wagers and commercial operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings is about to transform the entire industry in Ontario. In time, this combination is expected to have a major impact on any other Canadian provinces that follow suit.

BtoBet is a pioneer in online sports betting and iGaming technology. The company offers a full range of management services tailored to this industry. Earlier this month, BtoBet released an industry study that analyzed the market opportunities that single-game wagers bring to the Canadian market.

Titled the “Canada Betting Focus” , this report provides a regulatory overview of the country for legal sports betting and iGaming. More importantly, the study measures the impact of single-game betting on the entire marketplace.

The short-term growth trajectory could reach between $1.5 billion and $2.4 billion CA of betting volume within two years. Prior to the change in law, that growth trajectory was expected to be in the range of $241.7 million CA.

To say that the new law will make quite a difference would be a major understatement. The growth potential for Canada’s legal sports betting industry could mirror the tremendous growth of the US market in states offering legal sports betting.

Estimates for Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) are equally as impressive. Land-based revenue alone is expected to increase from $225.5 million to $591.5 million CA in the short term.

The Canadian Gaming Association provided a further analysis of the current market situation. In the absence of single-game sports betting, as much as $10 billion CA was being wagered annually through illegal bookmaking operations in the country.

The CGA attributed $4 billion CA in money wagered on sports through offshore books operating online. Prior to the change in law, approximately $500 million CA was wagered through legal provincial sports lottery corporations.

Canadian gaming numbers in 2019 accounted for $241.7 million CA in GGR from regulated sports betting. This figure reflected an annual growth rate of 5% over the previous 15 years. The growth rate for regulated online betting has been expanding at a rate of 30%. This compares to a growth rate of just 4% for land-based GGR.

Written by Dave Schwab, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert.

The featured image for this post was featured on Unsplash by Rachael Annabelle.

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