Casinos are reopening in Ontario just as a controversy surrounding the commencement of legal mobile sports betting in the Canadian province gathers pace.
Casinos in Ontario were forced to close by order of the state on January 5 in the face of the spread of the Omicron variant. Most non-essential indoor businesses were forced to shut down or reduce capacity. The hope was that it would be a brief ‘circuit-breaker’ shutdown, just enough to ensure that hospitals were not overloaded.
The gambit seems to be working. Omicron numbers are on the decline, and casinos will be able to welcome back players at 50% capacity on January 31. The next stages of the re-opening are due to occur on February 21, and then final restrictions are to be lifted on March 14.
Once casinos are fully opening it will be to a rapidly shifting landscape for the industry in Ontario, just as the mobile betting is gradually becoming legalized.
This issue has not been without debate: who, after all, should control the online market? The province’s land-based operators or the more tech-savvy online operators.
The government had decided in favor of the latter, but this hasn’t stopped land-based casinos from pushing their case.
Great Canadian Gaming – operator of 12 casinos in Ontario, including Woodbine and Pickering – weighed in on the matter, has instigated a last-minute lobbying effort to get the government to change course.
The control of mobile betting by online sites would “cannibalize” the profits of brick-and-mortar casinos, they claim, costing 2,600 jobs and $2.8bn in tax revenue over the next five years.
From the other side of the debate is the argument that having online operators in control would bring tech and innovation jobs to Canada.
Despite Great Canada Gaming’s protestations, the plan to go ahead with online operators remains in place.
