Ontarians‘ limited range of options for betting on horse racing just got a little bigger, and more could be coming.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) and Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) announced a deal on Tuesday that allows OLG to offer online and mobile parimutuel betting on live races, making it the first Canadian provincial lottery and gaming agency to do so. The offering was live on OLG’s digital platforms as of Tuesday, Aug. 12.
The largest horse racing operator in Canada, Woodbine Entertainment is also the only company that is federally authorized to offer betting on horse racing in Canada. All such wagering must be parimutuel wagering, wherein players pay wagers into a shared pool and winners share the pot, as fixed-odds betting on horse racing is illegal at a federal level.
OLG and Woodbine worked together to develop the new offering. While OLG’s iGaming site and PROLINE+ digital sportsbook will host the betting markets, WEG will operate and manage them via a plug-and-play integration of its horse racing betting product, powered by its owned-and-operated platform HPIbet.
“We are excited to offer access to this experience to our online players, providing another way for them to engage in the thrilling sport of horse racing,” said Dave Pridmore, the crown corporation’s chief gaming officer. “This collaboration represents an important step in our mandate of supporting the sport and a vibrant, competitive and sustainable horse racing industry in Ontario.”
Woodbine already teamed up with Bet365
Woodbine Entertainment hosts thoroughbred horse racing at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack and standardbred racing at Woodbine Mohawk Park in Milton. The company is run without share capital and is mandated to financially invest all profit back into the horse racing industry and the province.
While OLG is the first Canadian lottery to partner with WEG and move into online horse racing wagering, it’s not the first authorized online sportsbook to do so.
Woodbine Entertainment struck the first deal of this kind with Ontario-licensed Bet365 in 2023, and the British sportsbook has been the only regulated iGaming operator to offer parimutuel horse racing wagering in the province ever since. Bet365 developed its own product that uses WEG data, while OLG’s offering is a different plug-and-play interface created in partnership with Woodbine.
“This launch brings the excitement of horse racing to even more people across the province in a convenient and modern way — enhancing the experience for bettors while driving new interest in our sport,” said Woodbine Entertainment CEO Michael Copeland of the OLG deal. “It’s another step forward for the growth of horse racing in Ontario, and we’re grateful to OLG for their continued support and willingness to collaborate and innovate alongside us.”
WEG in talks with other sportsbooks
Tuesday’s announcement from OLG and Woodbine stated that the plug-and-play solution could potentially be used by other gaming operators in Ontario to offer racing to their own customers.
Woodbine Entertainment plans to offer its white-label betting interface to other sportsbooks that have been approved by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and iGaming Ontario (iGO). Each integration would have its own unique aspects, adapting WEG and HPIbet’s interface to suit the operator’s own needs.
The company is actively in discussions with other licensed operators. It has garnered interest from potential partners, but no further finalized deals are imminent as of the time of writing.
So, for now, if Ontarians want to bet on a live horse race online or on their phone, Woodbine’s HPIbet, Bet365 and OLG are the only government-approved options.
