Discussing how to approach new geographies and markets, Paul Burns, CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, said the positive regulatory outcome when Ontario went live with online sports betting and casino on April 4 was the result of pulling broad coalitions together.
“Changing the law on online sports wagering took about 12 years and posed its own challenges,” he said.
Burns said that for many years, Canada’s “gray market was sitting out there and no one wanted to do anything about it. It was worth around a billion dollars a year, half of which was coming from Ontario, and we were saying (to legislators and politicians) that they were losing on all of that revenue. Overall, everybody has to win in Ontario, so other jurisdictions in Canada can see that it works.”
The positive regulations came about as a result of all stakeholders pulling in the same direction. The Canadian Gaming Association helped enable the industry to present a united front and work across a broad coalition of partners.
Added Burns, “The CGA was there, but sports groups and communities were also there and they had stronger voices than the gaming industry’s (on its own). The Canadian Olympic Committee and sports clubs also took part in public hearings and were telling lawmakers ‘do this’.”
In regions such as Latin America, getting business-friendly regulations in new online betting and gaming markets is a key aim for the industry, but should also be balanced out by knowledge of how business is done in these markets, said Karen Sierra-Hughes, Vice President of Latin America & Caribbean at Gaming Laboratories International.
Sierra-Hughes said many countries in Latin America are assessing or are in the process of passing new igaming regulations, but she pointed out that in many of those markets, “lobbyists are not regulated and have political contacts and objectives”. Therefore, it is important to understand how their aims fit within the broader industry landscape of the market in question.
Brazil had been “really interesting,” she noted, “because it opened discussions at the Chamber (of Deputies) level” and GLI participated three times in discussions about online gaming and betting regulation, which provided a more qualitative and varied perspective that could be applied to numerous stakeholders.
“Public consultation is very helpful and provides valuable input and enables both the industry and regulators avoid mistakes by doing that,” she said.
Panel moderator Quirino Mancini of the law firm Tonucci & Partners said the industry should look to Italy’s gambling advertising ban as a warning of what can happen if the industry does not provide data, research, and hard evidence to help it achieve its lobbying aims.
“Europe has big issues when it comes to research and evidence-based data. Italy’s advertising ban in 2019 was complete nonsense. The new government was quoting numbers about problem gambling without independent data to back up their claims. The industry should have taken the lead on that. The equivalent of the CGA in Europe should have done that,” said Mancini.
