Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by World Bank Photo Collection, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The recent proroguing of Parliament by the ruling Liberal Party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau served to send several ongoing bills back to the starting line. That included a bill designed to legalize single-sports betting across Canada, a move that could add billions of dollars annually to the coffers of the 10 Canadian provinces.
The Canadian Gaming Association estimates that the amount of single sports bets that are annually placed through illegal sources in Canada is at least $10 billion and perhaps as much as $40 billion. Another approximately $4 billion a year is siphoned off by offshore online betting sites operating as Canadian sportsbooks but not subject to any regulation by Canadian government institutions.
Currently, the only form of sports betting in Canada is through provincial lottery corporations and requires what are known as parlays, meaning more than one game must be combined in a wager.
In Alberta, the Western Canada Lottery Corporation (WCLC) operates the Sports Select Lottery. This form of wagering on sporting events is available at supermarkets, convenience stores and gas stations. As well, sports lottery kiosks are also set up in all of the Alberta casinos.
However, bettors are required to select a minimum of three events on their betting ticket. In other words, if someone were to play a Calgary Flames game and an Edmonton Oilers game on one ticket, they’d be required to add at least one more game from any of the available sports. So it could be another NHL game, or it could even be a Calgary Stampeders CFL game.
The probability of hitting on a single sports bet where a player is choosing between two teams is 50-50. However, the odds of hitting three games correctly jumps to a 1-in-6 chance.
Championing The Cause
For years, two Windsor, Ontario-based NDP Members of Parliament have championed the cause and touted the benefits of single-sports betting but their proposals have mostly fallen upon deaf ears or been turned down.
It was Windsor-West MP Joe Comartin who first began the process in 2011. After Comartin retired, his successor Brian Masse picked up the cause but the bill died when Parliament was dissolved before the 2015 election.
Masse reintroduced the bill in 2016. This version passed through the House of Commons but before it could become law it stalled in the Senate.
Saskatoon Conservative MP Kevin Waugh speaking with Andrew Scheer looking on, licensed under CC0 1.0
The latest version, Bill C-218, known as the single sports betting bill, was introduced by Saskatoon Conservative MP Kevin Waugh and was waiting for second reading when Parliament was prorogued, It will have to be introduced as an entirely new bill when Parliament resumes.
“We were promised in this past election that sports betting … would be an easy one to get done and here we are a year later, more problems, more delays,” Masse told the CBC.
USA Cashing In On Sports Betting
Albertans need only look across the Canada-US border to see evidence of the boost that single-sports betting can bring to an economy.
In 2018 The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. This 1992 law prevented state-authorized sports gambling with rare exceptions. The law made Nevada the only state where a person could wager on the results of a single sporting event.
Today, single-sports betting is eligible to be legalized in all 50 states and several have already taken advantage of the opportunity.
The numbers generated by states that have chosen to legalize sports betting show just how much single-sports betting could boost the Alberta economy.
Delaware, with a population of less than 1 million people, has generated $24.29 million in tax revenue since 2018. Rhode Island (population 1.05 million) has picked up $13.22 million in tax revenues from sports betting. Even Mississippi (population 2.79 million), which opted to just go with retail sites and now allow online sports betting, has generated $8.65 million in tax revenue.
Alberta’s current population is 4.4 million. Based on these comparables, it’s not difficult to imagine what single-sports betting could mean to the coffers of the province.
Yet the Canadian government continues to drag its feet on this option, even though the commissioners of all four major North American sports – the NHL (Gary Bettman), NFL (Roger Goodell), NBA (Adam Silver) and MLB (Rob Manfred) – wrote to Trudeau encouraging passage of the bill.
“It’s a great example of how we continue to miss opportunities,” Masse said.
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