Ontario to Welcome FanDuel

Following the 2021 change in Canada that would allow individual provinces to make decisions around their own iGaming market, many fans have been anticipating the launch of new services and a bit of a step up in the number of services as a whole being offered – and Ontario looks to be getting out ahead of these changes in preparation for a number of sportsbook launches on April 4^th. Over the past few weeks, a number of different operators have already been given the go ahead including BetRivers and 888 Sportsbook, and the additions of FanDuel, Unibet, and Coolbet look to be helping Ontario to get off to a strong start.

FanDuel have been putting in the preparation for an Canada launch for quite some time, back in 2021 a new hiring to focus on the Canadian services was put in place, as the operator also plans to provide sports betting in Canada differently to how it handles its service within the US – the aim is to localize its services just to the Canadian market and will look to capture its Ontario audience whilst in the process of doing so – whether this means a different number of sports will be represented and if odds will be handled separately is yet to be unveiled, but could mean some substantial differences.

With over 13 million residents in Ontario alone, there’s a lot of hope that this open market will succeed in Ontario and do well across Canada too, when looking south at neighbors in the US with states like Colorado finding huge success with less than half the population, figures may look to be substantially higher too. The success may all come down to how the sportsbooks in particular are implemented however, and whether international events will be covered as well as national events – there will undoubtedly be a large audience that will look to games in the US and in Europe, and ensuring these options are in place will be vital.

It will be interesting to see how the market as a whole grows, whilst April 4^th does signal the change for Ontario, other provinces may still be adjusting and preparing their own changes and launches too, figures may be more reserved in the first year and quickly grow after that too which is a consideration that will need to be monitored, so for some expectations may need to be measured to not overestimate early expectations in particular.