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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