LeoVegas Ontario Review 2024 - Is LeoVegas legal in Ontario?

LeoVegas is now one of several fully legal Ontario sportsbooks and casino sites. LeoVegas has long been a provider of these gaming types to all of Canada from the so-called "grey market". They even employed a Hockey Hall of Fame member that hails from Sweden as a brand ambassador in order to leverage his reputation in the wealthy Toronto market. LeoVegas is a gaming company that is based in Sweden, so the fit was perfect.  In 2022, MGM Resorts moved to purchase LeoVegas to bolster their online gambling presence alongside their 50% stake in BetMGM.  How does the LeoVegas experience stack up to the available legal Ontario online sportsbooks? In our opinion, not great we're afraid, not great at all.

But first, can people outside Ontario play at LeoVegas?

Yes. From their Malta-based site, LeoVegas still accepts players based in other Canadian provinces and they offer CAD accounts and payment methods.  However, as we discuss in our review below, the general LeoVegas sportsbook and casino experience is not among the best that are available, whether in Ontario, or across the country.  If you are outside Ontario, read our list of the top betting sites in Canada or learn about our recommended Interac online casinos for players across Canada.  All the brands that we list are run by the top global gaming operators and have moved to serve the legal Ontario market.  All those listed there also offer top-tier online and live dealer casino experiences to players in BC, AB, SK, MB, QC and the Atlantic provinces. Continue on with our LeoVegas review though, to understand why we don't recommend it. (Versions for Ontario and the rest of Canada are very similar.)

LeoVegas Ontario desktop site layout

LeoVegas uses the normally pretty great Kambi sportsbook platform. Without hesitation, we can say that this is the weirdest implementation of the Kambi platform that we have seen - especially from your laptop or desktop. We're not sure why, but LeoVegas has decided that they do not want to use all of your screen's real estate when users access their site from computers.  There are huge areas at left and right that depict a sports stadium graphic. (Or on their casino platform, it depicts giant LeoVegas-styled coins.)  This is completely dead space. The result is that their actual betting site content, the events, the odds, the navigation elements are all crammed into a narrow column that scrolls down the middle of your screen. What a waste of screen real estate.

When you actually go to look at for example, NFL or NBA events, they only have room to show you the list of games and a single, lonely betting market, usually the moneyline. Most betting sites will show you a multitude of markets alongside the list of games or have ways to access more markets from the main league screen. LeoVegas forces you to actually click to view the game or event itself to get more than one betting market onto your screen.

Need to browse the LeoVegas sports and leagues?  You have to click a button that says 'browse sports". With some nice lag time, a pop-up then jumps onto your screen which allows you to plod around for your sport and league of choice. Terrible user interface aspect, again.

If you ever enjoy betting from your computer, LeoVegas Ontario would probably be one of your worst options in our opinion. There are so many operators that actually use the entire display and have far more user friendly interfaces.  If you prefer to see the Kambi sportsbook platform at its best in Ontario, have a look at BetRivers.

LeoVegas Ontario payment methods: they will stall on withdrawals

LeoVegas accepts Visa, Mastercard and Interac e-transfers for deposits. (Remember, gaming site payments in Ontario via credit cards are deemed as cash advances - so you pay a fee plus a high rate of interest from the moment of the deposit, even if you always pay your balance. Keep this in mind, regardless of the betting site or online casino that you choose.) 

However, when it comes to withdrawals, Interac itself is not available at LeoVegas. Instead, if you use Interac to deposit, you will use a related service called Econnect, which is supposed to let you authorize a withdrawal directly back to your originating bank account. Directly in the withdrawal part of the cashier page at LeoVegas, there is a note to advise about failed withdrawals.  Not a good sign.  When we looked to engage with Econnect for our withdrawal, on several devices, the Econnect withdrawal failed to work with our bank. A process that should take a few seconds with other services, took minutes to try to connect and then failed. 

We then had to confirm our bank account with their support team before we could request a withdrawal via bank payment. If you want your money back fast, whether from a win, or from a partial withdrawal of your deposit, our opinion is that you would be well-advised to avoid LeoVegas.  iGaming Ontario needs to crack down on behaviour like this, as they are seemingly engineering their withdrawal process to be painfully slow and ineffective, which will inevitably lead to some players returning to play, rather than waiting for the slow withdrawal process to be completed. From a Responsible Gaming perspective, one could say that this is poor, if not predatory behaviour. Either way, it should not be acceptable for an organisation like iGaming Ontario that purports to care about responsible gambling.

LeoVegas Ontario odds margins

For the 'big four' sports and the main betting markets, LeoVegas Ontario odds margins are reasonably competitive, in the region of 5%.  When 2-way market odds are identical on both potential outcomes, these odds would look like 1.91/1.91 and -110/-110.  For top soccer events, like the Premier League, UCL or Serie A, LeoVegas uses margins in the 6% region, which is not among the most competitive.  You can find soccer margins that are much better than this across most of our top listed providers.  LeoVegas odds margins blow out to 10% on lesser-watched soccer leagues, where betting volumes are not as high.  This is a very high sportsbook hold.  So if your favourite soccer league for betting might be outside the most popular ones, you won't get good value at LeoVegas.  If you enjoy other 'international' sports like cricket or rugby, odds margins tend to exceed 5%. 

In a general sense, if you are only going to bet on the 'big four' North American leagues of the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, LeoVegas odds will be in-line with the competition. If you will stray outside of this narrow group, you can get more competitive odds value elsewhere.

LeoVegas Ontario league & sport coverage

Although the layout of their site is probably our least favourite, they do offer a lot of available betting markets (or ways to bet) on the most popular leagues within Ontario and Canada, which makes sense, given the Kambi sportsbook platform they are on. They don't offer a better selection compared to other sites, they just have good coverage of what is popular here in Ontario.  So if you somehow like their strange layout, you will find plenty of coverage for the most popular leagues in a Canadian context.  However, if you like sports that are considered to be more 'International', like cricket, rugby or any sport that is more popular in another region of the world, LeoVegas might cover it with only the most basic betting markets.  Contrast this with the leading operators for Ontario that we recommend, that will offer far more ways to bet on these events.

LeoVegas Ontario Esports coverage

LeoVegas Ontario actually has reasonably solid coverage of esports events, especially compared to the US brands that have entered the Ontario market with zero or near zero coverage - again, this is down to Kambi.  At LeoVegas, you will find coverage of most esports events throughout the calendar, along with a good array of betting markets for each event.  Accessing esports events is a little weird with their relatively strange interface, where rather than browse through all the esports events on a single page, you tick boxes for the events you would like to see, then click to 'apply' your selection in order to display them.  It works, even if it is strange. 

The esports odds margins at LeoVegas Ontario are a little steep however, typically in the 7% to 8% region for the simple match winner markets.  If esports is going to be your main point of interest as you select from top Ontario esports betting sites, there are better choices like bet365 or Betway.  However, if esports is just one of the things upon which you will bet and you like the rest of the LeoVegas Ontario offering, their esports coverage will likely be good enough to keep you happy.  

Other LeoVegas Ontario gaming verticals

LeoVegas started as an online casino brand, so it should be no surprise that they will offer both RNG casino games (random number generator) as well as live casino games with a real-life dealer or croupier.  While LeoVegas will be one of several Ontario Interac online casinos, they will not offer an online poker room.

LeoVegas Ontario bottom line: there are better providers, no matter your game

There is nothing about the LeoVegas offering that is 'best-in-class' in our opinion. Furthermore, their approach to paying customers is downright shady, and worthy of a crackdown by the Ontario regulators.

If you are seriously into online casino games or sports betting, and you want a proper platform with all the games, speed, betting tools and sport coverage that you could desire, there are so many superior options.  bet365 is perhaps the best betting platform in the world and Betway is not far off.  Both of which will actually pay out with speed, respecting their customers, not paying lip service to a withdrawal request, all the while hoping the customer will return and lose the amount that was meant for withdrawal. In our opinion, stay away from LeoVegas.

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