Stuart Godfree, the Managing Director, Mobile and Geolocation Specialists for Mkodo, is our latest guest on the Gaming News Canada Show. Godfree, who co-founded the UK-based geolocation technology business 23 years ago this month, discussed the evolution of the company’s business in the more-recent regulatory environment of U.S. states and Ontario, including Mkodo’s work with the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation, Casumo and Betty. We asked Godfree for his thoughts on the regulatory regime created by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, with the assistance of iGaming Ontario, and the need for other Canadian provinces to follow the lead of the provincial government in Ontari-ari-ari-o.

Our conversation touched on the collaboration between operators and companies like Mkodo, which includes its Geo Locs service for igaming operators. Godfree, who will participate in the Modern Approaches to Traditional Verticals: Digitization Comes for Lottery, Bingo, and Horses panel at next month’s Canadian Gaming Summit, also provided his thoughts on the evolution of machine learning/artificial intelligence.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G2ysd1G6HSc?si=khj82YOv6NPC4SeW

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The Canadian Elite Basketball League opens its sixth season tonight in Calgary with the hometown Surge hosting the Edmonton Stingers in a hoops edition of the Battle of Alberta expected to draw more than 10,000 fans.

Mike Morreale, the CEBL’s commissioner, and deputy commissioner John Lashway appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show to set the table for the 10-team loop’s Summer of 2024. Morreale and Lashway walked GNCS host Steve McAllister through the league’s efforts to educate players, coaches, officials and other stakeholders on its sports betting policy and collaborating with league partners Genius Sports, SIS and BetVictor in the fight against match-fixing.

The podcast also includes a discussion on the CEBL’s partnership with BetVictor, which this season includes a weekly betting show to be produced by Homestand Sports.

And, Morreale and Lashway both weighed in on the league’s growth from six teams in its 2019 inaugural season to 10 teams with plans for expansion in 2025, the development of players, coaches and officials who have graduated to the National Basketball Association, and the CEBL becoming an attractive place for players looking to climb the pro hoops ladder.

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This morning, Sharp Alpha Advisors – the New York-based venture capital firm which specializes in sports, gaming and entertainment – announced the closing of Sharp Alpha Fund II, an oversubscribed $250-million VC fund investing in early-stage businesses. Lloyd Danzig, the managing partner of Sharp Alpha Advisors, joined the Gaming News Canada Show from Dallas to provide more details around the breaking news.

He also spoke about the flurry of M&A activity so far in 2024, including the acquisition of Quarter4 by FairPlay Sports Media Group, and what’s motivating those transactions, and what investors are looking for when it comes to providing funding to companies in the sports, gaming and entertainment spaces. And, what excites him about the innovation and products appearing in the world of sports wagering and online gaming these days.

Danzig, who will be speaking at next month’s Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, also addressed the opportunities north of the border. 

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Three years since doing the incorporation thing – and less than a year before the opening of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and igaming industry – Parleh Media Group’s journey has been one of twists and turns for its Homestand, Bettor Content and The Parleh/Gaming News Canada brands.

Mark Silver, the PMG chief executive officer who brought together the company’s six founding partners in early 2021 and Homestand’s content/brand grand poobah Kevin Kennedy appeared on the Gaming News Canada Show for some reminiscing and a lookahead at the opportunities in the always-changing world of betting, gaming and media. Silver spoke about his latest experience in a startup business, and the need for continuous experimenting and shifting strategies to meet the needs of some 10 clients which Parleh has served in Ontario’s two-year-old regulated marketplace. Kennedy was asked for his thoughts on the merger of sports betting and sports media – including The Locker Room program that’s available on the Sports Interaction app - the continuous search for unique content in a market that remains crowded despite the challenges faced by traditional media, and the content opportunities around Ontario’s robust online gaming business. 

Both PMG leaders gave their own taps of the hockey twig, Silver to investors and other supporters of the company, and Kennedy to the group of established and just-starting content creators who are finding a different path these days to telling stories in the world of sports.

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The leadership group at U.S. Integrity and Odds On Compliance took its own version of the Nestea plunge last month when it announced the merger of the two companies under a new brand, IC360.

Matthew Holt, the chief executive officer of the new company, and IC360 president Eric Frank appeared on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. The main drivers of the merger gave us the back story on how U.S. Integrity and Odds On Compliance came together since launching ProhiBet at the beginning of 2023, and the new business’s integration of integrity and compliance products. Holt explained the creation of an education and training team led by former EPIC Global Solutions employees Mark Potter and Dan Trolaro while both Holt and Frank got into the fast-moving evolution of artificial intelligence in supporting its integrity and compliance services. The interview also included a discussion on IC360’s plans for the Canadian market, including the hiring of Sebastian Jedrzejewski from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario last year and U.S. Integrity’s collaboration with the AGCO in the days leading up to the opening of the province’s regulated gambling marketplace.

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Some 5,000 people working across various sectors of the sports wagering and gaming industry in the U.S., Canada and countries around the planet will gather inside at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ, next week for the annual SBC Summit North America. It’s one of two major conferences organized this spring by SBC, which will co-host with the Canadian Gaming Association the June 18-20 Canadian Gaming Summit at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. 

Gambling industry veteran Sue Schneider, the VP of Growth and Strategy for SBC’s North American business, was our guest on this edition of the Gaming News Canada Show. Schneider, who was inducted into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame during the 2022 North America summit, teed up next week’s rendezvous in Secaucus, provided some helpful hints to first-time attendees and gave her perspective on the evolution of the SBC events, and the industry itself over a quarter of a century. We also asked what attendees of the Canadian Gaming Summit can expect next month in SBC’s second year of co-hosting the conference.

One of the most-passionate advocates for women working in the industry, Schneider also spoke about the progress that’s been made, including the creation of companies such as Ontario-regulated online gaming business Betty, and Betting Ladies, and the need to continue those efforts. She also weighed in on the current state of the gambling industry in the U.S.

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It was a homecoming of sorts when Will Hill joined the Canadian Lottery Coalition as its executive director. 

Hill, who spent 11 years with OLG, these days represents a collaboration of the Alberta Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, BCLC, Loto-Québec, the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation, and the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority. On the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, he addressed the coalition’s advocacy for legal gambling across Canada and the work that’s been done in trying to limit gambling advertising by regulated operators in Ontario within the province’s borders. And, we asked him about the apparent road to regulation that’s happening in Alberta.

The former journalist and Toronto Blue Jays employee also teed up a panel discussion at the Canadian Gaming Summit in June which is scheduled to include crown corporation leaders Kandice Machado (AGLC), Pat Davis (BCLC), Patrick Daigle (ALC) and Jean-Francois Bergeron (Loto-Québec). Hill also provided some thoughts on the current state of the gambling industry in North America, including a decline in casino visitors in some U.S. states.

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As sports betting and gaming continue to evolve, along with almost everything else, in the digital space, so do the methods of payments for people placing a sports wager and/or playing online poker, casino and slots.

On this episode of the Gaming News Canada Show, Paysafe executive Greg Kirstein was our guest. Kirstein, who joined Paysafe in the summer of 2013 and is currently the general manager, iGaming for the company’s North American business, discussed the business’s work with the lottery and gaming corporations in Ontario and Quebec, and regulated operators in Ontari-ari-ari-o. He also got into the expanding inventory of online payment products.

And, of course, we asked the Montreal-based Kirstein about the potential for expanding regulated gambling into other provinces across our home and native land.

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Last week’s suspension of Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter by the NBA for violations of the league’s gambling policy poured more fuel on the fire on the relationships between professional sports leagues and sports betting companies operating in legal gambling jurisdictions across the United States and Canada.

Doug Smith, who’s been covering the Toronto Raptors since Day 1 for the Toronto Star, appeared on this episode of the Gaming News Canada Show with Legal Sports Report gambling biz journalist (and former NBA beat writer) Mike Mazzeo. Smith spoke about the conversations he’s had with Raptors players about the new world of online sports wagering, and the ties that bind leagues and betting operators while Mazzeo weighed in on the measures being taken by all stakeholders in the fight against match-fixing and other potential betting scandals in pro sports. 

Daniel Umfleet, the founder and CEO of Kindbridge Behavioral Health, then joined the show from Southampton, England to weigh in on the Porter ban. Kindbridge’s partners include NASCAR, Entain, BetMGM, DraftKings, U.S. Integrity and Sportradar, and Umfleet answered our questions about the roles companies in different sectors of the sports wagering landscape play in preventing situations such as Porter’s, and the pressures faced by today’s athletes – current, former and those who are trying to prepare for life after playing. He also got into the evolution of responsible gambling programs in the U.S., which traditionally have been based on bricks-and-mortar sportsbooks and casinos to deal with the still-newish world of online gambling.

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Some 24 hours before iGaming Ontario released its fourth-quarter and 2023-24 year-end market performance report, Canadian Gaming Association president and CEO Paul Burns made his return to the Gaming News Canada Show for somewhat of a rapid-round episode.

Burns provided a plethora of perspectives on a number of topics, including the two-year anniversary of regulated gambling in Ontari-ari-ari-o and what’s next, what may lie ahead for regulated sports betting and igaming in other Canadian provinces, the work that’s been done in our home and native land on responsible gambling, and the role that Canada plays internationally in the gambling space. We also asked Burns about preparations between the CGA and SBC for the annual Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, taking place June 18-20.

And, there was also some girls/women’s hockey talk as the CGA’s head honcho walks away from the bench after a lengthy coaching tenure in the Leaside Wildcats organization.

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