Sports Interaction Ontario Review 2023 (SIA) - is SIA legal in Ontario?

Long-time sponsors of several CFL clubs, Sports Interaction has served all of Canada from their gaming jurisdiction in Kahnawake, southwest of Montreal. In 2022, SIA and its new owners, Entain, moved to gain their license to become one of several legal Ontario sports betting providers, in order to continue to serve their existing Ontario-based customers, and to attract new ones once the newly-regulated market opened.  The good news is that not a lot has changed in terms of the SIA sports betting experience for Ontario.  We take you through the basics, but know that the First Nations communities of Kahnawake still have a stake in this brand and players still get the ultra-light, and intuitive betting experience with just about every payment method you could hope to use.  We still think that SIA is a solid option for Ontario players. 

Who can play at Sports Interaction Ontario?

As with any iGaming Ontario provider, players must be physically located in Ontario to play on SIA Ontario. However, if you are in AB, BC, SK, MB, QC or any of the Atlantic provinces or Territories, you can play at Sports Interaction's main website as regulated from Kahnawake (in Quebec). If you are in any of these other provinces, read our SIA review for Canada to learn more about their sportsbook offering, or read about the SIA Canada online casino. Both gaming types are available from a single player account.  

SIA Ontario Sportsbook experience: a light, quick site, new app

SIA has always operated its online sportsbook via a website, no matter your device of choice.  They did not bother with an app - which is actually a more secure option for users, until 2023.  Mobile apps can be leveraged by their publishers to access all kinds of user data as noted in their terms of use.  You don't need to worry about this at SIA as you can choose to use their mobile site.  With SIA Ontario, you essentially get the exact same web platform that they've always had when it comes to betting, prior to the Ontario legal market opening.  The platform is highly intuitive and has no lag time as you tap around on your mobile or tablet, or click around on your computer.  As you would expect from a Canadian-only brand, all site terminology for sports are properly "Canadian" - no "Ice Hockey" or "American Football" on SIA - but rather "Hockey" and "Football", as it should be.  

What are the SIA Ontario payment methods?

Sports Interaction accepts Interac, Instadebit, iDebit, echecks via online banking, paysafecard and Visa / Mastercard.  Remember that credit card payments are treated as "Cash Advances" toward betting sites - even in Ontario's new legal iGaming market.  This means that your card provider (not SIA) will charge you high interest from the moment of the deposit, plus a cash advance fee near $5. This is the case even if you always pay your monthly balance in full - so if you can, avoid credit card use, in favour of debit or transfer methods, which have much lower fees and are super quick and easy to use.  This credit card fee issue is the same, no matter the sportsbook.

See where the action is being laid, with SIA Insights

SIA Ontario continues its approach to heightened transparency on the action, with SIA insights.  With this feature, for every event, players can look to see exactly how all SIA customers have been laying their bets.  An interesting feature that lets players ponder if they would like to wager with the wisdom of the crowd, or bet against it.

SIA Ontario sport coverage

SIA has excellent coverage from top to bottom.  When it comes to the most popular sports in Ontario, the "big four", plus various top soccer leagues, players get every typical betting market you could hope to have, plus numerous player and team prop bets.  For MMA betting, they cover it all, not just UFC.  For Tennis and Golf, you'll find all tours and tournaments, with match markets and Futures.  For Motorsports, they cover a full array of F1, NASCAR, Indycar and Moto GP events. SIA also cover essentially all of the more "international" sports that might be more typically popular in the UK, Europe or India. So if you want to get bets down on just about any market for these, they will be available to you. 

Sports Interaction Ontario available odds value & formats

SIA Ontario does offer all odds formats, Decimal is the default, but American and Fractional are available, and can be switched at the base of their site on any device. The strength for SIA Ontario for their odds margin comes with the biggest sports.  For the NFL, NBA, CFL, MLB and NHL tend to have margins at about 5% or sometimes toward the region of 4%. These will not be the most competitive odds margins out there, but at these levels, often times the side upon which you hope to bet will have very high odds among the array of legal providers.  So rather than 1.91 or -110 on either side, if the odds have broken away from parity on either side, you may get the benefit of a 1.95 or -105 value for your bet of interest. 

The potential drawback on odds value for SIA Ontario can come in the futures markets for popular leagues.  Given that SIA is a Canada and Ontario-only brand, Canadians are their only customers.  This means that a disproportional number of bettors will be betting on Ontario's and Canada's favourite teams or players to win various leagues or trophies.  When more bettors bet on a given participant, the subsequent odds on offer tend to go down in value, paying out less. The sportsbooks need to adjust odds in this way in order to manage their liabilities.

If you were to play at a sportsbook that serves Ontario, but also several of other geographies where Canadian participants are not the hottest bets, you may be able to find better value.  Imagine you are betting at a Canada-only sportsbook brand like SIA when looking for the odds on the Jays to win the World Series or for the odds on the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup. Given that these are heavily sought after bets in Ontario and broadly across Canada from a fan perspective, you can understand why these odds might get beaten down. 

This is a small drawback on the odds for SIA, but one that could matter if you like futures markets and tend to stick to the most popular betting ideas in the country. Better value is likely to be found elsewhere, and likely significantly so. For example, at the time of writing on September 28, 2022 as the Jays marched toward the post season, SIA Ontario had Jays World Series Winner odds of just 14.21 (+1321). We found other Ontario sportsbooks with odds of 19.00 (+1800) and 21.00 (+2000), which potentially paid out 36% and 51% more than SIA respectively.  So keep an eye on this, but it is should not be a deal breaker for you, especially if you don't chase the home team favourites.  After all, if you just tend bet on the team or player you think will win the given market irrespective of any home-team bias, SIA will be just fine for you, and you will probably be able to find nicely competitive odds.

Does SIA Ontario have an early cash out feature?

Yes. Sports Interaction offers an early Cash Out feature so you can protect stake money or secure a partial win before your event has reached its natural end. If your bet is available for the Cash Out, it will be in the "Live betting" section of their site.  Note that the SIA Cash Out is only available on single bets, rather than parlays.  Other Ontario providers may offer their cashout feature on these types of combination wagers.

Sports Interaction Ontario customer support

Get 24 hour support at SIA via live chat, or even give them a call via their toll free number at 1-888-922-5575.  Being able to get telephone support is a rarity, even in Ontario's legal market.  If you like to be able to talk to a real person if you have an issue, this is an important plus point.

SIA Ontario other gaming types: online casino & live dealer

For Ontario players, Sports Interaction continues to offers an excellent, top-tier online casino experience.  As an operator, they have always looked to provide their players with a wide array of exciting, oftentimes exclusive and branded slots games.  This continues with their new Ontario casino offering.  Beyond this, they also offer an excellent variety of live dealer games with several variations and options for fans of live blackjack, roulette, wheel games, baccarat or game shows like Deal or No Deal among others.  Read more in our SIA Ontario Casino review within our page about the top legal Ontario online casinos, or simply hit the SIA casino to see what's up.

SIA Ontario esports coverage

Sports Interaction Ontario does indeed offer esports betting. As we review their esports offering, they had event betting on the main upcoming CS:GO, LoL and Dota 2 events. This was limited however to the most basic, match winner markets in most cases. They did also cover SC2 and RLCS events, again with the simplest markets.  Margins were not particularly competitive at around 7.5% to 9%.  So in other words, SIA does offer esports betting. This is better than zero coverage, which is what we find when we examine many of the US brands that have entered the Ontario market.  However, there are several top international esports betting brands that have entered Ontario with their top-notch esports coverage. If you just want to get the odd bet down on esports here and there, SIA will have you covered.  However, if esports is a focal point for you, you should look to see our top Ontario esports betting sites.

SIA Ontario bottom line

Sports Interaction remains a solid option for Ontario players now that they are officially able to serve people located in the province.  A solid sportsbook and casino platform that offers a proper website for use on all devices, which is a superior option for your data privacy compared to mobile apps (even though they now offfer apps). You get proper Canadian coverage of the events that matter, reasonable odds value and a quick and intuitive interface no matter your preferred device.  Plus, you now know that revenues are shared with the province as part of iGaming Ontario, even though the new owners have a continued business relationship with the First Nations communities of Kahnawake.

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