Some 3 ½ years into Ontario’s regulated online gambling industry, 51 operators (including the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation/OLG) are doing business with less than a half-dozen departures since the market launched in April 2022.

We’ve been told by several sources that more operators are a coming to perhaps the most competitive regulated marketplace on the planet. And we know, because its intrepid leaders have said so publicly, that High Roller Technologies is poised to join the party.

Hence, our motivation to have gaming industry veterans Ben Clemes and Seth Young be our guests on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Clemes, who joined High Roller as chief executive officer in January 2024, is a former executive with the Gaming Innovation Group and is an investment and portfolio partner with HappyHour.io.

 Young, High Roller’s chief strategy officer, is the former chief innovation officer at PointsBet and currently sits on the board of directors at EQL Games, Kinectify and Kindbridge Behavioral Health. 

The pair, speaking with host Steve McAllister from Las Vegas, answered the host’s questions about High Roller’s road to regulation and its hopes of launching in Ontario before year’s end. Carlo Scappaticci, another experienced hand in the business of gaming, has been named managing director for High Roller’s Canadian operations. Clemes told McAllister the company will be putting additional staff in place here, and the company has already announced partnerships with Playtech and Kinectify for its Ontario business.

Both Clemes and Young spoke about the opportunity for success in a crowded market, and shared their thoughts on the Ontario model. That, of course, led to a conversation on the incoming Alberta market, which Young and Clemes are following. The popularity of igaming with Ontarians, carving out a niche in a busy market, and exploiting artificial intelligence also came up during our conversation.

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On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, we took a dive into the world of sports data and analytics (and sports betting) with the co-founder and chief executive officer of Odditt, Matt Bresler.

Our interview came on the heels of last month’s announcement the Las Vegas-based company had completed a successful fundraising round, with a helping hand from Vancouver entrepreneur Chris Kape and B.C. legal beagles Alon and Ron Segev. Bresler, who co-founded the company in January 2021with former DraftKings executive Elaine Milardo, talked about his decision to jump ship from the international fossils industry, and Oddit’s transformation from offering sports statistics and betting odds data to sportsbooks to its recent work on producing a direct-to-consumer app. 

Bresler also gave us some insight on the company’s plans for Canada, and also weighed in on the increasing popularity of women’s sports. 

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When SportsGrid made the decisionlast month to let go several of its sports wagering personalities, Jo Madden was among the departures. Being a free agent hasn’t stopped the hosts of a Cup of Jo from continuing to churn out the content on her on her Instagram and X accounts, especially during the countdown to the start of the NFL regular season in four weeks.

The Australian-born, long-time Albertan (and former member of the province’s netball team) is our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. Madden talked about her departure from SportsGrid and what’s next for her. As is the case for all of our GNCS guests, Madden’s path to the gaming industry is of the more-than-interesting sort as she discussed her transition from the worlds of accounting and liquor imports to provide sports betting advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Madden told us about her daily routine, being a woman in the sports betting space, and how she’s dealt with the online abuse that’s sadly all-too common with personalities and athletes, as we noted in last week’s edition of the GNC newsletter involving tennis star Elina Svitolina at the recent National Bank Open tournament in Montreal. 

Finally, Madden offered some advice for anyone wanting to take the plunge into the sports media/betting business, and we wanted her thoughts on the 2025-26 Calgary Flames, too.

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Phill Gray, the former Head of Trading for Sports Interaction and gaming industry veteran, returned to a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show and covered a smorgasbord of topics, including:

• The latest report from iGaming Ontario, which reflects the ongoing popularity of online casino games with Ontarians playing on regulated websites/apps;
• Some thoughts and layers on the road to regulation in Alberta;
• The debate around in-play/prop bets, including proposals by legislators in New Jersey and Ohio to ban them;
• The latest on the U.S. gambling industry, including conversations and legislation around responsible gaming, the presence of prediction markets by Kalshi and others, taking action against illegal operators, hiking taxes on wagers, etc., etc. etc.
• The concern about the VIP programs offered by operators in the legal gambling environment.

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Did you hear the one about the professional poker player who co-founded and became the chief operating officer of a lottery, bingo and gaming company?

Well, we hadn’t until seeing an announcement in early June of a new partnership between Random State and Oakville-based Delta Bingo & Gaming. That happened mere weeks after the Swedish-based businessreceived its supplier’s licence from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. So, we invited Adam Fonsica to be our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show.

Fonsica, whom we first met in June 2024 at the Canadian Gaming Summit, talked us through his journey from playing poker to running an online lottery and bingo business. The one-time Miljonlotteriet executive also discussed Random State’s interest in Ontario and the rest of Canada, the Delta partnership, the impact of the digital world on lottery and bingo, and also provided his insight on regulated gambling in his homeland. 

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The dog days of summer they aren’t for the North American gaming industry, especially south of the border.

Hence, our motivation to get Saam Hafezi and Shawn Fluharty back on the Gaming News Canada Show this week. Fluharty, the head of government affairs for Play’n Go, has been busy in recent weeks with his appearance at the G7 Canada Brain Economy Summit’s forum on responsible gaming and gambling policy, and at an at-times contentious National Council of Legislators from Gaming States conference. That gathering prompted some fireworks with a legal beagle from Kalshi, as its presence in the betting gaming is setting off alarm bells and court battles in the U.S.

So, we asked Fluharty for his takeaways from the G7 forum in Calgary, and the NCLGS event. He was joined by Hafezi, the North American regional director for Play’n Go, to discuss the online games supplier’s ongoing business in Ontario, its partnership with Loto-Quebec, and their thoughts on the to-come open market in Alberta.

Given the focus on responsible gambling measures in both Canada and the U.S. these days, we also asked Hafezi and Fluharty how their company is contributing to the RG conversation.

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Harry Levant walked out of a casino after making what would be his final wager on April 27, 2014, returned to his hotel room and attempted to write a suicide note to leave for his family. He decided against taking his own life and has spent the past four years dedicated to working with people struggling with gambling addiction, as he did.

Now a Doctor of Law and Policy, and the Director of Gambling Policy at Northeastern University. Levant has been a loud voice on what he believes the regulated gaming industry is getting wrong when it comes to prevention of harm from sports wagering and online casino games. The good doctor, who was recently quoted in a Washington Post article on abuse of athletes on social media, and on CBS 60 Minutes about the impact of technology on problem gambling, was our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. 

He shared his story from that April night 11 years ago, the judge who gave him a second chance and his path to becoming a counselor, therapist and now leading the charge in developing a public health response to what he calls “the crisis created by the unprecedented expansion of the gambling industry”.

We asked Levant for his thoughts on the impact of in-play betting, easy access to online gaming, what he’d like to see happen with advertising around sports events, and his response to the bill introduced by Sen. Marty Deacon in the Canadian Senate to create a national framework on sports betting advertising. Levant also spoke about the efforts by operators, regulators and other companies/organizations in the regulated gaming industry to reduce gambling harm.

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The Responsible Gambling Council over the past week announced the release of a Gambling, Marketing and Advertising report that was funded by Flutter Entertainment. RGC CEO Sarah McCarthy was in Ottawa with Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming Stan Cho, OLG head honcho Duncan Hannay and other executive types for the opening of the PlaySmart Centre inside the spanking new Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in the nation’s capital.

Speaking of McCarthy, who at the beginning of the year succeeded Shelley White as the new boss of the Toronto-based RGC, she joined colleague Elaine MacDougall for a conversation with your humble host during the Canadian Gaming Summit in June. We asked the new CEO about her decision to leave the Rick Hansen Foundation to lead the Council, and her transition into the new role. McCarthy and MacDougall, who has a new title (Senior VP, Strategy and Programs) for their takeaways from the annual Discovery conference in May, the RGC’s involvement in the recent G7 Canada Brain Economy Summit sessions on responsible gaming and gambling policy, and the council’s ongoing RG efforts – especially in its education programs targeted at youth.

Please excuse any background noise or audio imperfections. This episode was recorded live on the show floor of the 2025 Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto. We appreciate your understanding and hope you enjoy the conversation.

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The Canadian Gaming Summit ended last Thursday but not before delivering some news, a new name (to be henceforth known as SBC Summit Canada), some new partnerships and some new friends before some 3,000-plus weary members of the gambling industry boarding planes, trains, buses, Ubers and other automobiles to head home.

Before he could take his leave from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Canadian Gaming Association boss Paul Burns kindly lent your humble host a seat inside the CGA Members Lounge and agreed to give us his thoughts and layers for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show at the end of three days of meetings, panels, speeches from political types representing the provincial governments of both Alberta and Ontario, and other happenings during the summit.

Included were, as Dave Briggs wrote in last Friday’s newsletter, comments from the Attorney General of Ontario, Doug Downey, that the province will be “aggressively” going after operators who have given the one-finger salute to getting their licence, and news from the province’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming, Stan Cho, that his office will be reviewing the legal gambling industry – now three-plus years old.

Burns also weighed in on the comments from Alberta minister Dale Nally during the summit on the road to regulation in the western Canada province.

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The latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show is one of the two-part type as we pack our suitcase and fill up the GNC vehicle before heading to the city below Uxbridge for this week’s Canadian Gaming Summit.

Canadian Gaming Association senior executive Amanda Brewer returned to the show for a rapid round on what’s happening across the national gaming industry these days. That includes the slow road to an open market in Alberta, the wait at iGaming Ontario for a new boss and the launch of a centralized self-exclusion program, and lobbying efforts for open gambling regimes in British Columbia.

We also had a chat about this week’s summit, where Brewer will moderate “The urgent need to modernize Canada’s AML framework” panel Wednesday a.m. with Derek Ramm (Kinectify), Brian Terranova (FanDuel) and Heinen Hutchison Robitaille LLP partner Scott Hutchison.

Craig Cornforth of EPIC Global Solutions took time out from the SBC Summit Malta last week to make his maiden GNCS appearance. The former auto dealer told his poignant story around gambling addiction and the road to recovery that led him to join EPIC and its work in the prevention of gambling harm. Cornforth will be on stage with Alistair Facciol (Rhino Entertainment), Ryan McCarthy (BCLC), Covers journalist Geoff Zochodne and yours truly for a Thursday morning chin wag on “Regulation and responsibility: how the new politics affect player protection”.  

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