May 23, 2023
Today, a new Canadian iGaming lobby group announced its launch. The Quebec Online Gaming Coalition was formed by eight founding members: Apricot Investments, Betway, Bet99, DraftKings, Entain, Flutter, Games Global and RushStreet. Apricot and Games Global are iGaming platform providers. Flutter, DraftKings and RushStreet operate igaming brands that do not currently serve Quebec within the Canadian "grey market". However, Betway, Bet99 and Entain do operate brands that currently serve Quebec from "grey market" jurisdictions of Malta and Kahnawake.
Currently, Quebec is only legally served by the online sports betting brands of Mise-o-jeu and Miseojeu+ as offered by Loto-Quebec, which is the province's lottery corporation. While they state several aims in their initial press release, the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition essentially has one goal: to replicate the iGaming Ontario regulated market framework of licensed operators in la Belle Province to allow for many more legal Quebec betting sites.
Here are the salient points from their initial press release:
Today, leading online gaming operators came together to launch the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition (QOGC), an industry-led organization committed to actively working with the Quebec government and local stakeholders to develop a new regulatory framework for the online gaming industry. The Coalition is determined to address growing concerns about consumer safety, responsible gaming, advertising, and substantially increasing government revenues based on a new licensing regime for qualified private operators.
The Coalition was assembled in response to a recent survey conducted by Leger Marketing that found that:
As part of its mission, Coalition members will be promoting the benefits for the Government of Quebec to create an independent regulatory body that will establish standardized controls on responsible gaming to protect vulnerable and underage players. To that end, Coalition members are also committed to contribute to the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture to continue to study gaming behaviours and the ways in which the Coalition can protect and provide a safe and responsible gaming experience for Quebecers.
In a 2014 report, the Online Gambling Task Force (link in French), chaired by Dr. Louise Nadeau, and composed of academic leaders in online and responsible gaming, recommended that the Quebec government take steps to implement a new regulatory regime based on a licensing model aimed at private operators. The report’s recommendations were based on global best practices that allow private operators to offer responsible, honest, and secure online gaming under the regulatory supervision of the government. The report and its recommendations were shelved by the previous government, allowing the province of Ontario to play a leading role in regulating the online gaming market in Canada.
Comparable jurisdictions around the world, including Scandinavian countries, several European countries and Ontario, have put in place a framework for online gaming platforms. The Coalition would like to build on the Ontario model of online gaming regulation that came into effect in early 2022, and was developed in collaboration with iGaming Ontario (IGO), the Government of Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). This model requires private online gaming operators to obtain a license before operating in Ontario in order to access to the market.
According to an Ipsos survey conducted in March 2023, 85.3% of players in Ontario played on regulated sites during the first year of the province’s regulated market model.
This licensing system and regulation has allowed the Ontario government to receive substantial revenues from private gaming operators, estimated at more than 380 million in the first year. The Coalition believes that the introduction of regulation would allow the Québec government to earn revenues over and above those already offered by the current system, and that these new funds should be reinvested these funds in key sectors of the Québec economy.
Given how militant Quebec has been in the past in this arena, we're not sure how much traction or success this new iGaming lobby group will have with the powers that be in Quebec's government. For example, in 2015, Quebec tried to order its Internet Service Providers to block "grey market" gambling sites. (An attempt which was blocked by federal courts.) Despite the survey figures above and the obvious benefits as quoted from the Ontario experience, we don't see Quebec being the next province to follow Ontario's lead on igaming market regulation.
New iGaming Lobby Group in Quebec |
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