As Ontario’s regulated market for sports betting and online gaming was busy celebrating its second anniversary on Thursday, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and iGaming Ontario took the opportunity to release a fresh IPSOS study.
The results of the study that was conducted in February showed that 86.4% of Ontarian players had used regulated sites for their online gaming habits over the past three months before the time of the questioning.
The figure marks a boost from the previous 85.3% recorded a year before.
In the press release issued on Thursday, AGCO explained that an estimated 70% of online gambling happened on sites that were not regulated sites prior to the official launch of the regulated market.
Over 13% Of Ontarians Used Unregulates Sites
The same IPSOS study discovered that 20.1% of active online gamblers over the reactive three-month period used a mix of regulated and unregulated sites.
Study results showed that 13.6% of participants reported that they wagered on unregulated sites.
According to AGCO’s chief executive officer and registrar, Dr. Karin Schnarr, “regulated sites are held to high standards of game integrity, data security, and player protections” in the Canadian province.
This also includes having important responsible gaming safeguards in place.
Schnarr added that while it is “encouraging” to notice that the majority of players opt for regulated forms of gaming, those who do not make the same choices “are unfortunately risking far more than their wagers.”
Ontario Has 27 Licensed Sports Betting Operators
The province’s 27 licensed sports betting operators have lifted the market into the Top 5 markets in North America when it comes to total wagers.
The iGaming Ontario news release spoke about the most popular sports by wagers that Ontarians wager on.
Basketball is ranked first with 24% of the market, followed by football at 15%, hockey at 11%, baseball at 11%, and soccer at 10%.
Icasino still takes on the largest segment by wagers, with around 82%. At the moment Ontario counts 47 casino game operators.
Only five of them offer online peer-to-peer poker in the province. Together, they turned Ontario into the largest online poker market by gaming revenue in North America with over $1.5 billion in total wagering this year alone.
Global regulatory intelligence company Vixio has confirmed that the province’s iGaming market jumped into the sixth position worldwide by gross gaming revenue last year.
This includes estimates of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation iGaming activity.