iGaming Ontario Announces Fiscal 2022/23 Q2 Market Performance Report

October 13, 2022

The iGaming Ontario Fiscal 2022/23 Q2 market performance report covers the period from July 1 through September 30 of 2022.  When one compares the results to the iGO Q1 2022 results (April 4 through June 30), the upward trajectory of Canada's first legal iGaming market is clear to see in each and every key performance metric.

Quarter to quarter, iGO saw a 33% increase in total operators from 18 to 24.  The number of brands run by these operators increased 24% from 31 to 42.  The number of active player accounts in Ontario increased 28% from 492,000 to 628,000. The average player account spend increased 26%, from $113 to $142.  The total number of wagers, (aka the handle) increased 48% from $4.076 billion to $6.04 billion (this is across all iGaming verticals, casino, sports & poker).  Overall gaming revenue increased 65% from $162 million to $267 million. 

This is a big increase across iGaming Ontario's KPIs, should we expect a plateau in Q3?

No. While the step up from Q1 to Q2 was big, from Q2 to Q3, we think that there will be significant percentage increases again for both Total Wagers and Total Gaming Revenue, likely at similar percentage growth rates, quarter over quarter.  Why might this be the case?  First, Q3 is always a cyclically strong quarter for Ontario (or any Canadian or US market geography) simply due to the sporting calendar. 

Q3 will contain NFL games each week, the MLB playoffs, the starts of the NBA and NHL seasons, and notably for Ontario this year, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which will see Canada compete there for the first time since 1986.  The iGaming Ontario results will increase significantly into Q3 from Q2, simply down to this. 

These cyclical results will be compounded by the fact that several significant brands will be able to contribute to iGO's Q3 results for the full quarter, as they were only partial contributors within Q2.  Betway is probably the second largest brand in the market of legal Ontario sportsbooks by existing player volume.  This brand was only added to the iGO platform on August 2, one month into Q2.  Thus, Betway's July revenue and wagering figures for the 2nd quarter remained outside the iGO performance results. 

Perhaps even more impactful, Betway's parent company, Super Group, also owns four key casino-only brands that were licensed by the AGCO on June 23.  However, JackpotCity Ontario, Ruby Fortune Ontario, Spin Casino Ontario and Royal Vegas Ontario did not go live on the iGO platform until early September. Thus, only one month of revenue from these significant, previously "grey market" brands got into the Q2 results for iGO.  We've shown that the Canadian revenue for these Spin brands account for the largest line item of revenue by market geography for this global iGaming company. A full quarter of performance contributions for these brands will be a very significant boost for iGO's Q3 results.

Sports Interaction also only went iGO-live on August 29, meaning only one quarter of that brand's Ontario sportsbook and casino revenue fell into the 2nd quarter's figures.  BetVictor went iGO-live at the end of the 2nd quarter on September 27, so it essentially contributed nothing to the posted Q2 results.  These important sports and casino brands will be able to contribute their revenue numbers for the complete third quarter, which is significant, given their brand history in Ontario, with many existing players migrating over from their time in the "grey market".

New operators will enter the Ontario market to further boost Q3, with their partial revenue results

So far into iGaming Ontario's 3rd quarter, World Series of Poker (WSOP.ca) and Nitro Casino have gone live. The latter of which has migrated its Ontario "grey market" customers into the legal market. Numerous AGCO iGaming license holders, like Pinnacle, Bet99, Betsafe and several casino-only brands, that all have "grey market" customers to migrate over, have yet to go live on the iGO platform. If they do go live in Q3, as we expect most will, they will provide an important incremental boost over the Q2 results. Finally, Q3 will also likely see some completely fresh brands to the Ontario market go live, such as Betano, which never operated from the "grey market".

In the end, expect another quarter of explosive growth from iGaming Ontario in Q3.

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