When Ontario opened its doors to legal sports betting and igaming industry in April 2022, one of the first companies to provide its online slots products to the marketplace was Play’n GO. In May, the Swedish-born company announced a partnership with Loto-Québec to bring its products to the lottery corp’s customers in La Belle Province. And last month, just before the start of the Canadian Gaming Summit, Play’n GO became a member of the Canadian Gaming Association.

Saam Hafezi, the company’s North American business lead, and head of government affairs Shawn Fluharty took time away from their version of Meetings Madness during the summit to join us on the Gaming News Canada Show. Hafezi walked us through Play’n GO’s strategy for growing business in Canada and addressed the need for speed and delivering what the customers want in a highly competitive sector of the gambling industry.

Fluharty, who serves as the president of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, explained the challenges operators face in navigating the different sets of rules created by gambling regulators in U.S. states and Ontario.

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On the second morning of the recent Canadian Gaming Summit, news broke of an exclusive partnership between BetMGM and Brian Christopher, the online slots and casino influencer with almost 700,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. That afternoon, Christopher and his business partner Marco Bianchi sat down with us on the summit’s exhibition floor for an episode of the Gaming News Canada Show.

Christopher and Bianchi, the co-founders of Palm Springs-based BC Ventures delivered some details on how the BetMGM partnership came to fruition, including Christopher’s to-come appearances for the giant igaming brand on YouTube, Facebook and Kick. We also asked Christopher about his success in building a following through BCSlots, FlipTheSwitch.com, BCSlots Cruises and Rudies Fan Club.

Bianchi, a former colleague of your humble GNCS host a decade ago with Yahoo, weighed in on the company’s growth and Christopher’s connectivity with online gaming players and audiences. The two men also emphasized the commitment to responsible gaming, which Christopher will reinforce in the partnership with BetMGM.

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Martha Otton was among the busiest attendees at the recent Canadian Gaming Summit. The executive director of iGaming Ontario was a ubiquitous presence around the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, whether it was speaking formally with operators in Ontario’s regulated sports betting and igaming market in her role as executive director, participating in a panel on the province’s successful industry with OLG president Duncan Hannay, OLG board chair Jim Warren and AGCO CEO/Registrar Dr. Karin Schnarr, and holding a cornucopia of informal conversations.

Otton, who was put in charge of creating the conduct-and-manage subsidiary of AGCO in February 2021, also made time to join us on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. We solicited some additional thoughts to her words at the conference about the iGO-commissioned report conducted by Deloitte around economic contribution from Year 2 of a regulated industry which today includes almost 50 operators and 80 gambling websites/apps.

Our interview occurred minutes after Alberta minister Dale Nally announced the western Canadian province will follow Ontario’s lead in opening a regulated gaming marketplace, so we asked Otton for her reaction. The iGO boss also addressed the ongoing evolution of legal gambling in Ontario and her still-young organization’s focus on improving its use of technology and data.

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For three and a half years now, your humble host has listened and learned from many, many voices across all sectors of the gambling industry. And some of those experts prompt us to go all E.F. Hutton when they speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MXqb1a3Apg

One of those very learned people is Benjie Cherniak, who returned to the Gaming News Canada Show after a busy couple of months piling up the frequent flier miles, including stops for NEXT.io conferences in New York and Malta. The native Montrealer, an investor and advisor to a cornucopia of companies in the gaming space (including his investment in the proprietors of GNC) was appointed to the board of directors of Kambi Group last month.

We asked Cherniak to chime in on several topics in the industry these days, including the happenings around mergers and acquisitions (to wit: DraftKings acquiring Jackpocket and Sports IQ Analytics and rumblings it will also bring Simplebet into the DK family; FanDuel’s acquisition of BeyondPlay; and the sale of Waterloo-based Quarter4 to FairPlay Sports Media). He also provided some sundry thoughts on the discussions and debates around the still-newish regulated gambling marketplaces in Ontario, and states across the U.S. of A., the creation of media and marketing content for sportsbook and igaming operators, and the ongoing innovation happening in the business.

Cherniak also had some advice for first-timers attending the Canadian Gaming Summit, which gets underway today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

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Dr. Ian Messenger is a man with many hats over his professional career, from his work as an officer with Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh almost 20 years ago, to time as an operational duty officer with Interpol London and international intelligence officer, to investigating crimes of the financial sort with HSBC and OLG.

Messenger’s experiences and expertise motivated him in the fall of October 2022 to create the Association of Certified Gaming Compliance Specialists, which today provides training to the casino and igaming sector in Canada and around the rest of the world. In March 2023, the ACGCS and Dalhousie University announced the first-of-its-kind course in igaming compliance in our home and native land.

At next week’s Canadian Gaming Summit, Messenger will moderate a panel on Identifying and combating human trafficking in land-based casinos. He joined us on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show to talk about his experiences and his motivation for launching an association which provides online courses to people around the globe. Messenger also got into the steps that have been taken to stop human trafficking casinos and gave us some advice on how to identify that someone may be in trouble.

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The co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Toronto-based Rivalry made his return to the Gaming News Canada Show.

A conversation between Steves – Salz and McAllister – begins with the head honcho of the online gambling company laying out the path to last week’s announcement of Rivalry entering the world of cryptocurrency, including the NUTZ interim points program.

Salz answered our questions about the company’s latest financials, also released last week, and the company’s strategy for the remainder of 2024. There was also a discussion on what’s happening in the esports universe, and Salz’s observations about Ontario’s regulated gambling market moving into Year 3.

The expansion of regulated gambling beyond Ontario in our home and native land also prompted a couple of interesting responses from Salz, who will participate in the Next-Gen gamification: engaging Millennials and GenZ panel at the upcoming Canadian Gaming Summit.

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As the boom in women’s sports continues, led by Caitlin Clark’s arrival to the WNBA, the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, and Nelly Korda’s dominant season on the LPGA Tour, BetMGM has seen that rising tide impact its sports betting handle in a bullish manner.

Scott Woodgate, the company’s Vice President in charge of Canada, and PR Manager – Data Insights John Ewing appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show to provide thoughts and metrics on the increase in betting on women’s sports, and the rise in female bettors. Ewing dug into BetMGM’s announcement earlier this year there was a 51-per-cent increase on women betting on the Super Bowl – thanks in some part to the Taylor Swift effect – compared with the 2023 NFL championship game. Ewing answered our question about the habits of female bettors.

Both Ewing and Woodgate also got into the impact of increased attention around women’s sports on BetMGM’s product, including customers being invested in Clark during NCAA March Madness and in her rookie WNBA season with the Indiana Fever. “We reflect the interest from bettors,” said Ewing, who, with Woodgate, spoke about the similarities between sportsbooks and media when it comes to women's sports.

Woodgate provided his perspective on the current state of regulated gambling in Ontario, and the prospect of Alberta becoming the next Canadian province to open its door to legal operators. Alberta’s iGaming Evolution is among the panels at the June 18-20 Canadian Gaming Summit, with Patrick Harrison guiding a conversation between TRM Public Affairs President, Entain senior executive Martin Lycka, and BetMGM Vice President, Strategy & Development Witek Wachinski.

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On the latest edition of the Gaming News Canada Show, we are joined by two women who’ve been instrumental in the highly acclaimed efforts of the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation when it comes to creating and continuing to push forward with a culture that embraces diversity, equity and inclusivity.

Catherine Meade, the Vice President of Community, Sustainability and Social Responsibility has been with OLG for more than eight years, and in May was named North America Leader of the Year during the SBC Summit North America. Tyjondah Kerr will celebrate 25 years with OLG later this year, and is currently the corp’s Director, Social Responsibility.

Meade and Kerr both spoke about OLG’s commitment to DEI, beginning with an embracing of the organization’s five-year plan in February 2019 and continuing to build on that strategy at a time when companies are pulling back on their DEI efforts. Meade talked about the work she’s done in various roles over her career, beginning as an equity officer at Acadia University and the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society in the 1990s, to her position of Director, Capital Projects for the PanAm/Parapan Games group in Toronto less than a decade ago, and as a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ sports community.

We asked Kerr about her early years as a young black woman in the business of gambling – telling the story of her frustration at being overlooked for promotions - and the (slow) evolution of the industry as one that’s more inclusive with work still to be done. Our two guests also weighed in on the tidal wave these days around women’s sports.

Meade and Kerr will both be speaking at the June 18-20 Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto.

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