Ontario Lottery and Gaming’s new online sportsbook provider Kambi does not expect the upgraded PROLINE product to hit the market until the first quarter of 2026, the company’s CEO said on Wednesday.
OLG and the Swedish iGaming technology provider announced in February that Kambi would take over La Française des Jeux’s (FDJ) contract as the power behind OLG’s omnichannel sportsbook until 2032. Kambi initially said it expected the multi-channel migration to be completed in the second half of 2025, before pushing that timeline to the final quarter of the calendar year and subsequently to December.
On a Nov. 5 earnings call, Kambi chief executive Werner Becher admitted things were taking longer than hoped.
“Our planned launch with Ontario Lottery is now likely to take place in Q1 2026,” said the CEO. “It is on the Ontario Lottery to decide but we expect the launch now in early 2026.
“On the flip side, we’ve managed to stay close to our original guidance with the tight cost control and the efficiency program. OLG is really a shift to January, so the vast majority of the revenue of that deal is completely unaffected. It’s just, we’re talking about a few weeks’ push, which has impacted what we see in the 2025 calendar year.”
Kambi CEO disappointed, not concerned
Kambi signed 12 new partner agreements after July 1, the majority in relation to its flagship turnkey Odds Feed+ product. Like the earlier OLG deal, some of those integrations have been pushed into 2026 after initial hopes had been for a 2025 launch. As a result of delays with OLG and others, Kambi has reduced its full-year 2025 EBITDA guidance.
In late July, Becher said that he believed the OLG project was “fully on track” to launch at the end of Q3 or the start of Q4 this year, a projection echoed in comments OLG gave to Canadian Gaming Business at that time.
“I think we were all a little bit disappointed that the closing and signing of some deals took a little bit longer than expected,” admitted Becher on Wednesday. “I would have loved to see us signing some of these deals already earlier.”
However, Becher stressed that there is no cause for concern when it comes to the OLG rollout delay. He and Chief Financial Officer David Kenyon pointed to a significant level of development work and testing that is needed before launch.
“This is a very complex, big project for OLG and us together,” added Becher. “They are operating 10,000 points of sale in Ontario, so the integration to their lottery system is a complicated project, which we completed a few weeks ago. We are in a testing and integration phase with them now.”
In a statement provided to Canadian Gaming Business, an OLG spokesperson said that the lottery is “taking the necessary time needed to ensure thorough testing and smooth integration with OLG’s platform.”
OLG aims to grow market share
OLG offers retail and online betting through its PROLINE brand. Separate 2024 revenue numbers from the lottery and iGaming Ontario implied that OLG had roughly a 20% share of regulated Ontario online sports betting and online casino activity by revenue. Anecdotally, that would give it a podium position among authorized operators.
Kambi already provides sportsbook solutions to Bally’s, MGM Resorts International subsidiary LeoVegas, Rush Street Interactive’s BetRivers and more. In Ontario, it also powers retail betting for Great Canadian Entertainment casinos, as well as Mohegan’s Fallsview Casino and Casino Niagara.
OLG told Canadian Gaming Business earlier this year that it expects Kambi’s takeover of its sportsbook platform to make it even more competitive against Ontario’s dozens of commercial sportsbooks. The same week, Becher said on a July earnings call that he is confident Kambi’s expertise can help OLG grow its market share.
“Being the market leader in Ontario, of course they want to make sure that everything is working perfectly before they launch the new product,” the Kambi CEO added on Wednesday. “This is why we did not have a lot of influence on the launch date.”
