Fitzdares Ontario Review 2024 - Who can play at Fitzdares Canada?

Fitzdares is now officially one of the available legal Ontario betting sites, as integrated onto the iGaming Ontario platform.  While they are a licensed sportsbook for Ontario, they do not operate a "grey market" or "offshore" betting site.  Thus, know that only people that are 19+ and located in Ontario may use their Canadian gaming platforms.  If you are located in Canada but outside Ontario, you cannot play at Fitzdares Canada.  If you are in any province or territory outside Ontario, read our list of the top betting sites for Canada, as operated "offshore".

About Fitzdares

If you are in Ontario, and are considering playing at Fitzdares, you might want to know a bit more about them.  Prior to entering the Ontario market, Fitzdares got their start in the UK.  They have a relatively unique approach to business.  If you've ever been to the UK, you will have noticed many retail bookmaker locations on most main shopping streets.  However, most of these locations have a particular sort of feel.  Some might call these outlets "down-market". 

Fitzdares on the other hand runs a limited number of membership-based "Fitzdares Clubs" in the UK.  While the clubs have many TV screens, we would describe these clubs as "up-market" in terms of the decor and the available food menus.  In other words, Fitzdares operates bookmaker locations for customers with more discerning tastes than your typical sports bettor.  To complement their club experience, they also offer their sportsbook website so members can place bets when away from the club.  Of course, people in the UK can play at their betting site without being a member at the clubs.

This appears to be the approach that will be taken in Ontario for Fitzdares.  While Fitzdares-dot-ca is now open to serve players in Ontario, they are still in the process of sorting out their "Fitzdares Club" in Toronto.  They had a launch party for first customers at "Harbour 60" in Toronto.  If you've never been there, it is a fairly posh steakhouse with luxurious surrounds in a heritage building.  We imagine the Fitzdares team will be looking for a similar feel when they create their club.

What is the Fitzdares Canada betting site experience like?

Fitzdares-dot-ca is on the "FSB Technology" sportsbook platform.  FSB's platform is not used by any sportsbook brands that we would consider to be in the top tier of global or regional sports betting operators.  You can see the partner brands listed on the FSB site.  What does this mean?  Well, there are several business-to-business sportsbook platforms on the market that operator brands can look to use to launch their betting site and apps.  Not being a "leader" or being partnered with "leaders" does not necessarily mean the FSB platform is bad.

In our opinion, there are aspects of the Fitzdares Canada FSB platform that are quite positive.  Using their site to navigate from our computer or our mobile, the site is very "light" and fairly quick to navigate from page-to-page. Navigation points are also pretty good, making things flow in an intuitive manner.  We can find our leagues and events of interest pretty easily, which is important.  When you click or tap to view a given sport, you first are shown the "Featured" events or leagues, which is helpful as most people will want the most popular upcoming events.  But if that's not what you want, buttons for "in-play" and "competitions" - meaning all competitions - are very visible for you to toggle to these other lists of events or leagues.

The negative for us on the Fitzdares platform at the time of review, had to do with our mobile experience. The Fitzdares default odds format is "American".  While a selector is available to switch to "Decimal" or "Fractional" format, the location of the selector in the mobile menu is actually placed in a location that was impossible to scroll to.  We could see it off screen, but we could never get it actually on our display to make the change.  While this seems like a small detail, if you are one of many that prefer "Decimal" format, that used by Proline, you will have this difficulty from several mobile devices.  Being able to set your preferred odds format should be a given, but it is not.

Fitzdares Canada sports coverage, the good and the not so good

Fitzdares' UK heritage is evident in their offering for Ontario. If your sport of focus is soccer, Fitzdares offers you a ton of betting markets, especially for upper tier events like the EPL, UCL, or Serie A.  What's the not so good?  The array of available betting markets for essentially every other sport is, by comparison, extremely limited.  When we reviewed their pre-game markets for the NBA and NHL games on the same day, they offered 18 and 14 betting markets respectively for most games.  Compare this to most legal Ontario sportsbooks that have NBA and NHL betting markets in excess of 100 for every match. 

Fitzdares essentially had no player-related bets on display, which is a big difference compared to the top Ontario operators.  We'll see how this changes as MLB and NFL seasons return, but even as we browse other sports, like tennis or rugby, these events had limited options in this regard.  If you tend to stick with the main markets of moneyline, totals and spreads or handicaps, this won't affect you at all.  This is only a negative for those bettors that really like to scan for value on numerous player props - they just are not there.

How does Fitzdares Canada compare to other brands on odds value for the main betting markets? 

On typical 2-way main markets on North America's biggest leagues, Fitzdares is a mixed bag, compared to the more competitive sportsbook. When they launched in Ontario, most major markets in the big four had odds that looked like 1.90/190 or -110/-110 on most results where a handicap or "line" was involved.  This is a margin of roughly 5% to 6%. Margins on 2-way moneyline or match winner market were also essentially competitive with other brands.  However, into 2024, odds margins for the NBA have shot up to 8% to 9% on NBA point spreads, which is insanely bad value on a key market.  This value shift is not across the board, so if you want to give Fitzdares a try, be vigilant in checking on the value on offer for your markets of interest.  In most other spots, including top-tier soccer events, margins tend to be in line with other operators for the most popular leagues and sports in Ontario.

However, it should be noted that for some less popular events, the odds margins can again blow out to an uncompetitive level, like for example on NCAA basketball, where we see odds of 1.83/1.83 or -120/-120, which is a margin over 9%, which is not good value at all compared to top brands that treat NCAA in a similar fashion to top pro leagues.  This will be something that you'll need to monitor at Fitzdares if you bet on leagues outside the traditionally most popular ones.   

Does Fitzdares Canada have a "Bet Builder"?

Yes.  However, again, their UK heritage again comes through.  Their equivalent feature is called "Create-a-Bet" and this only appears to be available for bets within soccer.  It won't be available on the sports that most residents of Ontario really want to bet upon - NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB.  This is another area where the FSB sportsbook platform that Fitzdares uses is somewhat limited compared to our recommended providers, most of which provide a more robust "Bet Builder", which is available on more top leagues from a Canadian bettor's perspective. If you are particularly looking for an Ontario sportsbook with the most robust SGP Bet Builder, bet365 Ontario allows for this across the most sports and leagues, not limited to soccer only.

Fitzdares Canada payment methods

At the time of review on January 16, 2024, Fitzdares Canada accepted Interac, Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards.  Note that all credit card payments to gaming sites in Ontario and from across Canada are "cash advances", which means that your card company will begin to charge interest from the moment of your deposit, so be aware of this going in.  Debit and e-transfers are far better options.

Does Fitzdares only offer a sportsbook online?

Fitzdares also offers a fully legal online casino that includes both typical RNG-based slots and table games, but also a selection of live dealer games.  These include branded games like "Narcos" or "Guns & Roses" video slots, and "Monopoly" from big-time game publisher Megaways.  The Fitzdares Canada casino is nicely organized in simple groupings to you can find the kinds of games you'd like.  Theirs is not our favourite or most recommended Ontario online casino, but it will surely provide more than enough compelling options for most players, and can nicely complement your sports betting without having to register at an entirely new casino provider for that type of play, if you really like their sportsbook offering.  See our recommended Ontario casino sites for further reading and a more focused casino discussion.

Fitzdares Canada bottom line

In our opinion, given their plans to open an upscale sportsbook club in Toronto, they are indeed an interesting option, though into 2024, we've seen no news on that yet.  Their mobile platform has one particular flaw which will need to be addressed, as it affects roughly 50 per cent of Ontario players that do not prefer American odds.  Overall, their betting platforms remain most robust for fans of soccer, but do not provide a full array of features or betting options for the sports and leagues that most Ontario players will be interested in, the so-called "big four".

For bettors that stick to the main betting markets across all sports and keep to the biggest leagues and events, Fitzdares provides betting options for all that you might need, though players should look out for one-off markets that have poor odds value relative to other operators.  If you want real depth of coverage on North American sports, Fitzdares has not yet demonstrated a high level of betting market coverage, features or odds value that is comparable to our recommended legal Ontario sportsbooks.

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