The Ontario minister responsible for gambling gives the province’s gaming industry a B+. But he wants that A grade.

Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming Stan Cho said on Thursday at the Canadian Gaming Summit that his ministry will be launching a sweeping review of the province’s online and land-based gaming.

The core goals are to increase efficiency, ensure the entire gambling sector delivers even stronger economic returns, continue to protect players and ensure greater synergy between land-based gaming and the commercial online gambling market that has grown steadily in the province over the last three years and counting.

“Ontario is very much a pioneer and a leader in this sector,” Cho said. “I think we’re doing a fantastic job of balancing those important revenues with also making sure we continue to invest in safe and responsible play. We have challenges and, of course, we also have opportunities to improve. That’s why we’re doing this gaming review.

“These are some important times in gaming. We are seeing iGaming continue to grow, we are seeing the gaming appetites continue to evolve, and we need to monitor these changes carefully and be very adaptive.”

Bricks-and-mortar gaming remains piece of the puzzle

It’s a reflection of the fact that the game has changed in Ontario.

The double whammy of the legalization of single-event sports betting in 2021 and the launch of regulated online gambling in 2022 transformed Canada’s most-populous province from a retail-heavy market run by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (albeit with a hefty dose of unreregulated online gambling going on in the shadows) into one that is highly competitive, deeply saturated and increasingly digital-first.

Such a rapid and continuing evolution poses its own challenges, of course. As Cho put it, “problems are evolving.”

It is unclear exactly what the review will entail, and the results it will yieldb, but Cho specifically mentioned land-based gaming several times, stressing that bricks-and-mortar casinos, retail sportsbooks and other physical-footprint gambling spaces remain an important piece of the puzzle.

As just one example of what his ministry’s review could throw up, Cho suggested that the province’s self-exclusion system, currently in development under the online gambling conduct-and-manage agency iGaming Ontario (iGO), needs to be shared across not only all iGaming platforms but all land-based gambling, too.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he acknowledged. “I don’t know that we hit the exact ebb and flow of this evolution of online and land-based gaming. I think the market is just starting to get comfortable with iGaming and understanding how that balances with land-based gaming. So, we have to monitor that carefully.”

iGO goes it alone — well, sort of

Under Cho, who assumed his current role almost exactly one year ago, things are already changing.

One notable development earlier this year was iGO becoming its own standalone government agency, newly separate from the market regulator, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), which reports to the Ministry of the Attorney General rather than Cho’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming.

While iGO and OLG are separate and standalone entities with very different roles under Cho’s ministry, Cho, iGO Chair Heidi Reinhart and OLG Chair Jim Warren all stressed during Thursday’s summit session that shared goals and work will be key. Reinhart noted iGO is excited to be a spun-out agency and to have a closer relationship with the ministry, as well as with OLG on an operational basis.

Reinhart also teased on Wednesday at CGS that iGO will be announcing its new CEO soon as they conclude their search for a replacement for the retired Martha Otton.

“The time is right,” said Cho of iGO going solo. “The gaming environment is evolving both on the land-based side and on the iGaming side, and that’s why those two agencies [iGO and OLG] need to be close to each other, but also need to be separated and autonomous so that we have the ability to move quickly and be adaptable. The worst thing that government can do is move slowly in an ever-changing environment such as this.”

Gambling industry, this is your government calling

Cho vowed that, through it all, the government will make its decisions based on what is best for the industry.

“As we go through the gaming review and the evolution of online and land-based gaming, you have my word that we will work with you as industry partners to make sure that decisions make sense based on expertise, not on speculation and not on a politician’s whim.

“Regulation is important. Red tape is a disaster for prosperity and growth. You can never perfectly future-proof anything, but the biggest disaster you can do is to over-prescribe something. I think the government needs to be very careful in that.”