Nearly a month after the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario rolled out new advertising and marketing guidelines for sports betting that ban the use of athletes and celebrities, stakeholders in Canada still aren’t sure what it all means. What’s clear is that we won’t be seeing any more Zamboni races between hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and current star Connor McDavid.
“Where we find ourselves in a bit of conundrum is what the definition of an athlete of a celebrity is,” the Kindred Group’s Amanda Brewer told Steve McAllister on earlier this month. “No operator has any appetite to visit the early days of the market launch when the inducement language was clear as mud and operators were getting fined for transgressing those standards.”
Dating back to April 2022, when Ontario became the first Canadian province to launch single-game wagering, operators, suppliers, and vendors have struggled to interpret AGCO rules. PointsBet Canada and BetMGM were hit with fines a month into legal gambling in Ontario for breaking the rules around promotional play, which is banned in the province.
The new regulations go into effect in February.