Image credit: Source: Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario / company statement. Never imply stock depicts the actual event.
Ontario's gaming regulator issued Fanatics Betting and Gaming's Canadian arm an internet gaming operator registration on August 11, clearing the way for Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Casino to enter what would be the company's first consumer gambling market outside the United States. The two-year registration comes from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, but Fanatics still has to sign an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario, the separate body that runs the province's commercial market, before it can take a single bet.
A Fanatics spokesperson told Casino.org the company "will share further launch details in the coming weeks," meaning a licence is confirmed but a launch date is not. Fanatics currently runs its sportsbook in roughly two dozen US states plus Washington, D.C., with its casino product live in four of them. Ontario would be the first time either product operates under a foreign regulator.
It is also a crowded room to walk into. Ontario now counts 48 registered operators running 83 gaming websites, and the province's regulated market pulled in more than C$4.2 billion in gross gaming revenue in its fourth full year, with 91.1% of surveyed bettors using a regulated site, up 7.4 percentage points from a year earlier. Hard Rock Bet and DAZN Bet both launched in the province within the past six months, so Fanatics would be at least the third major new entrant in half a year, not the first mover into an open market.
"Success in this market depends on user experience, app design, customer service, and loyalty rewards," said Amanda Brewer of the Canadian Gaming Association, adding that Ontario "may have reached saturation" and that new entrants are "coming in with their eyes wide open." Fanatics' pitch into that saturation is the same one it uses in the US: a shared login and rewards currency across its sports-merchandise business, sportsbook and casino product, betting that a retail relationship converts into a betting one more cheaply than paid acquisition can.
A licence answers one question and opens a harder one
Getting registered was the easy part, and largely a formality once a company clears AGCO's standard checks. Whether a fourth or fifth major operator can still win share in a market where nine in ten bettors already use a regulated brand is the question Fanatics' actual launch, whenever it comes, will have to answer.