Each week, Steve McAllister, the Editor-In-Chief of the Gaming News Canada, digs deeper into trending gaming and sports betting topics with industry leaders and insiders, reporters and other stakeholders in the business. The discussion and debate also includes questions and opinions from our followers about the hottest industry in sports today.
Follow us on Twitter @GamingNewsCA for the latest storylines, and links to the weekly live show.
Subscribe to the newsletter http://gamingnewscanada.ca
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Each week, Steve McAllister, the Editor-In-Chief of the Gaming News Canada, digs deeper into trending gaming and sports betting topics with industry leaders and insiders, reporters and other stakeholders in the business. The discussion and debate also includes questions and opinions from our followers about the hottest industry in sports today.
Follow us on Twitter @GamingNewsCA for the latest storylines, and links to the weekly live show.
Subscribe to the newsletter http://gamingnewscanada.ca
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Long-time Friend of Gaming News Canada Phill Gray, the former trading lead at Sports Interaction, joined us for a lookahead on several levels into the business of sports betting and online gaming over the next 12 months.
Gray tackled the issues expected to be of the most hot-button variety across the Canadian and American gambling industries in 2026, including:
And, of course, we asked Gray for his new year’s predictions around the industry in Canada.
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On the final episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming for 2025, GNC writer-in-chief Dave Briggs and Covers gaming industry senior correspondent Geoff Zochodne were our guests for a media roundtable on the year that’s been, and what lies ahead for 2026.
The conversation included a record revenue monthfor Ontario’s legal operators in November with non-adjusted gross gaming revenue surpassing $400 million for the first time since the province’s open, regulated market opened its doors in April 2022. Zochodne and Briggs provided their thoughts on Ontario, the province’s Court of Appeal decision earlier this year around liquidity and what should be top of mind for iGaming Ontario boss Joseph Hillier and Co. going into 2026.
Of course, there’s a segment devoted to Alberta and the provincial government’s plans to launch its expanded legal gaming marketplace next year. Our two media guests chimed in on the industry’s continued efforts around responsible gaming, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s latest plan to turn Niagara Falls into the “Vegas of the North” and a discussion around changes to the Canadian horse racing industry – including Great Canadian Entertainment’s decision earlier this month to close historic Hastings Park.
Finally, Briggs and Zochodne identified some storylines to follow over the next 12 months.
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On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming, Steve McAllister’s guest is the general counsel for Soft2Bet – owners of the Ontario-licensed ToonieBet brand – David Yatom-Hay.
Yatom-Hay, who previously worked at DraftKings and GamingTech, provided some thoughts and layers on ToonieBet’s past 12 months, which included partnership deals with the Canadian Football League and the Ottawa Senators, the launch of its sportsbook app and competing with big, established brands in the North American gaming space (Soft2Bet is almost set to launch in New Jersey).
On the heels of our interview with Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners on the previous podcast, we asked Yatom-Hay how the Ontario model compares with other jurisdictions (Sweden, Denmark and Mexico, to name a few) where Soft2Bet does business and the lessons learned in Ontario that could be applied to Alberta’s plans for an open gambling market.
Soft2Bet’s legal beagle provided a few details on the company’s recent call with iGaming Ontario president and CEO Joseph Hillier, and also discussed a recent op-ed by the company’s chief product officer, Yoel Zuckerberg.
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The recent announcement by the ruling government in the United Kingdom of tax rates – including a hike to 40% for remote gaming - for the gambling industry was met with an avalanche of reaction not only in the UK but other parts of the world with regulated gaming environments.
So, we asked Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners – whose coverage of the international gambling landscape is a must-read (to subscribe, drop an email to dan.waugh@reguluspartners.com) – for his thoughts on the brouhaha around the tax hike and its potential impact on regulated gambling and the companies servicing the industry within the UK and to other parts of the globe.
We also asked the long-time follower of the gaming industry about jurisdictions that are getting it right with their regulatory frameworks, and to weigh in on the regulated vs. black market debate around the world.
Waugh also had some words of wisdom for the folks in charge of creating Alberta’s regulatory gaming regime, opening date still TBD.
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On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming, Steve McAllister spoke with the two founders of Golden Camel, Ryan Magrum and Artie Baxter.
Magrum, a former professional poker player, was flipping houses in Austin, TX., four-plus years ago when his wife said her husband needed to find something in his professional career to be passionate about. That led to a phone call to Baxter and the beginning of creating a platform which Baxter calls “the Apple TV of sports betting”.
Magrum and Baxter talked about their plans for creating something unique in the business of betting, what’s behind the branding of their business, wanting to “be the glue between the consumer and the platforms” and how Golden Camel can connect with young adults immersed in the betting space.
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Since we started covering the business of sports betting and gaming almost five years ago, experts in the space have talked to us about exploiting the omnichannel opportunities. Among the operators which are delivering that combination of land-based and digital gaming is BetMGM.
Hence, the maiden appearance of chief revenue officer Matt Prevost on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. Prevost talked about the reaction from customers to the launch earlier this year of Live from Vegas, a casino-floor studio inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that produces – with support from gaming industry supplier Playtech – live streaming interactive table games to its digital players.
Prevost also talked about the popularity of the company’s Family Feud and The Price is Right products, the result of BetMGM acquiring the rights to the iconic television shows at the beginning of 2025. The conversation also got into sports wagering, including an early look at the Super Bowl and NFL betting so far this season, and, of course, the Toronto Blue Jays’ run to an epic World Series and the impact that had on BetMGM bettors in Ontario’s regulated marketplace.
We also asked the head revenue guy if BetMGM’s attitude towards prediction markets have changed since CEO Adam Greenblatt addressed them during an earnings call in October.
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When Martha Otton announced in the summer of 2024 that she was retiring as Executive Director of iGaming Ontario, there was thinking among different sectors of the province’s regulated igaming market that the organization’s Chief of Staff, Mitch Davidson, would be a great fit to move into the leadership role.
Instead, Davidson decided in August to get back into the policy game, this time as Vice President, Policy for Canadian public affairs firm Enterprise Canada. The former Director of Policy for the Premier’s Office was our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.
Your humble host tried to cover with the new father the gamut of topics in the business of sports betting and online gaming, Canadian style, including:
Davidson also explained the motivation for the creation of The Policy Shop on Substack, a weekly, well-reasoned deep dive into the issues that matter most to Canadians these days and – importantly - offering potential solutions.
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Count the Canadian Gaming Association among the entities in the business of sports betting and other forms of gambling that are riding the industry’s fast-moving train these days.
Hence, our rationale for bringing back on the Gaming News Canada Show, CGA president and CEO Paul Burns for a rapid-round episode of the podcast. Burns first addressed last week’s decisionby the Court of Appeal for Ontario with regards to expanding peer-to-peer play to international jurisdictions and the potential opportunities around the court’s ruling if there are no appeals filed over the next 20-something days.
Next up was a segment on Bill S-211 – aka the National Framework on Sports Betting Advertising Act – passing first reading in the House of Commons. That led to Burns walking your humble host through the CGA’s recently released Code for Responsible Gaming Advertising, put together in collaboration with the association’s membership and with Ad Standards – Canada and scheduled to be put into effect at the beginning of the new year.
Burns also spoke about the CGA’s request for an exemption from the cash limits in Bill C-2, which awaits passage in the aforementioned House of Commons. The section of greatest concern to the association includes this clause:
136 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 77.4:
Offence — cash payments, donations or deposits of $10,000 or more
77.5 (1) Every person or entity that is engaged in a business, a profession or the solicitation of charitable financial donations from the public commits an offence if the person or entity accepts a cash payment, donation or deposit of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or in a prescribed series of related transactions that total $10,000 or more.
The CGA’s head honcho also gave us a few thoughts about the recent sports betting/match-event fixing scandals in the NBA, UFC and Major League Baseball.
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To borrow a line from The Roastmaster Jeff Ross, the only thing John Levy has ever sugarcoated has been his morning bowl of Corn Flakes (Ed’s note. . . our tongue was securely fastened in our cheek while tapping the keyboard).
Levy was his usual candid self in his latest conversation with Steve McAllister on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. The original founder of Headline Sports – which spawned theScore, Hardcore Sports Radio and theScore Bet – had lots to say about the news last week of ESPN and Penn Entertainment ending their 10-year agreement, and the end of ESPN Bet.
Levy, who sold Score Gaming and Media to Penn in the summer of 2021 and left the company in 2024 along with his sons Aubrey, Benjie and Noah, discussed the failures that led to the demise of ESPN Bet and the breakup of Penn and Barstool Sports in the summer of 2023 (we asked Levy if he had any interest in pulling a Dave Portnoy and reacquiring theScore – he answered). He also talked about Penn’s problems in the digital gaming business both in the U.S. and Canada and had some thoughts about the comments of Penn CEO Jay Snowden last week that the company may have interest in the retail casino business here in the Great White North.
The conversation also included the relationship between sports betting operators and sports media companies. And, some two weeks after a riveting World Series, Levy trumpeted theScore’s 10-year partnership deal with the Blue Jays that was announced on the same day Ontario’s open gambling market opened in April 2022.
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On a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming, Adam Rosenberg and CJ Buskey joined our humble host with some news of the breaking sort around their newish business Handigraphs.
After launching a dashboard back in June to lend a hand to bettors of baseball, Rosenberg and Buskey will start this week to offer NHL data/analytics/metrics/numbers/etc. to lovers of puck. The two co-founders, who also do some moonlighting as co-hosts of the Dads Bet Baseball pod, talked about taking their passion for baseball and spreadsheets and turning it into a business. Buskey and Rosenberg also let us know they were ahead of the curve when it came to the 2025 edition of your Toronto Blue Jays and their wonderful run to their first World Series appearance since 1993.
We asked the co-owners about the delay in launching their hockey product a month into the NHL regular season, and how the information being provided on Handigraphs will lend a hand to bettors wishing to lay a loonie or two on prop bets. Speaking of which, Rosenberg – whose work in the gaming industry prior to becoming a branding, communications and marketing consultant included stops at The Action Network and Better Collective – provided some thoughts and layers on the push in some corners these days to ban prop betting in the regulated North American industry. The noise around that debate became louder over the weekend as Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz are both facing legal trouble amidst allegations of rigging pitches.
Finally, we asked both Buskey and Rosenberg if Blue Jay fans can expect another sensational summer and fall in 2026.
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Some 50 days since joining iGaming Ontario as the president/CEO of the conductor and manager of the province’s competitive sports betting and online gambling market, Joseph Hillier was our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.
Hillier, who was introduced as Martha Otton’s success at the end of August and joined iGO in early September, talked about the process that led him to accept the position and leave the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario after 19 months as the AGCO’s chief strategy officer and corporate secretary. And how he can parlay his experience at the AGCO, and in the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General during the time the province’s private sector-driven igaming market was created around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We also asked the new boss about the first weeks in his new office and his priorities, which we highlighted in the newsletter just days before Hillier’s start date – including the implementation of improved technology (especially with regards to data collection and reporting mechanisms), a long-awaited centralized self-exclusion program and improved protocols around anti-money laundering.
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On the Monday morning after a somewhat-chaotic week in the businesses of sports, sports betting and gambling, we reconvened the media roundtable for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.
Covers gaming industry beat reporter Geoff Zochodne, Steve Ruddock of the Straight to the Point newsletter and Gaming News Canada newsletter editor Dave Briggs joined your humble host for a rather lengthy conversation. Much of the focus was on the ongoing investigation by the FBI into illegal sports betting and allegations of rigged poker games involving the mafia that have so far led to the arrests of Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player/assistant coach Damon Jones. The reactions across the sports and gambling industries, the media coverage, a bipartisan invitation from the U.S. Congress for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to come to D.C., and what regulators and operators could/should do were among the topics discussed.
The panel also spent time weighing in on the NHL’s new partnership agreement with prediction market firms Kalshi and Polymarket, which continue to butt heads with legal gaming operators and advocates, and regulators in the U.S. of A.
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Before making his maiden appearance at a Toronto Maple Leafs game – the regular-season opener against Les Canadiens de Montreal no less - Betty Canada CEO Chavdar Dimitrov returned to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.
Dimitrov, the former engineering lead for Bede who was named the head honcho for Betty’s Canadian operations in the fall of 2024, provided his perspective around the company’s decision in June to become an official online casino partner of the Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors. He also talked about the support Betty has received from the partnership team at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment leading up to the start of the NHL and NBA regular seasons and plans to exploit its first major partnership in the Ontario market. And Betty continues to evolve its marketing strategy, including the onboarding of The Parleh to provide support around video content.
A record August for the regulated gaming industry in Ontario prompted us to ask Dimitrov about the continued growth of online gaming, including Betty’s slots business. Betty, which has been uniquely transparent in providing numbers around its Ontario business, told us the operator has now surpassed 90,000 customers.
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Some two years ago, Quarter4 co-founder Kelly Brooks received a phone call from the CEO of FairPlay Sports Media (the business formerly known as Oddschecker Global Media), Stuart Simms, who wanted to explore acquiring the Waterloo, ON sports data/analytics/prediction company.
When the sale was completed and announced in January 2024, Brooks became FairPlay’s Chief Product Officer and co-founder Danijela Covic began the next chapter of his career in the U.S. In March, Brooks decided it was time to move on from FairPlay, so we’ve been wanting to catch up with one of the first people we met in the gaming industry.
Mission accomplished, as the Guelph entrepreneur and mom returned to the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming for a chin wag on a number of topics, including:
- Her support and mentorship around startups these days, and what’s next for Brooks;
- Being immersed in artificial intelligence when Quarter4 was launched in 2019, how that technology has evolved, and building a company during the COVID-19 pandemic;
- The back story on being acquired by FairPlay and enjoying her time as CPO for the UK business;
- The ongoing innovation around sports data and the collaboration between companies doing business in the same space;
- Quarter4’s place as a member of the gaming ecosystem in the early days of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and online gaming market;
- Being a woman in the gambling industry;
- Lessons she's learned and is passing along to young(er) entrepreneurs.
And more.
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For more than three decades, Colin Cole-Johnson has worked for some of the biggest brands in the global gaming industry. . . . Ladbrokes, William Hill and Entain. For more than three and half years now, Cole-Johnson has led the Bede Gaming business.
For the first time, Bede’s chief executive officer appeared on a podcast, joining Steve McAllister on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming. Among the topics covered during their conversation:
- What motivated Cole-Johnson to get into the business of gaming in the 1990s and the path that led him to Bede.
- The focus of today’s Bede business, including its partnership with OLG.
- Bede’s shared industry with the major players across the industry in landing more business here in Canada.
- The company’s decision to recently join the North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries.
- The ongoing pursuit of new products, among them Bede’s recent launch of its Tournaments platform, and the continued search for more gamification offerings to customers.
- Cole-Johnson also answered our question about the balance of exploiting people power and the power of artificial intelligence in a highly competitive environment.
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The President/CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, Paul Burns, found time after a busy September of planes, panels, summits, forums and the like to have a lengthy conversation with Steve McAllister on a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Bede Gaming.
Among the topics du jour:
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The Labour Day weekend was still in our rearview mirror (although we had to squint to see it. . . ) when Absolutebet Corp announced it had been given the green light by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to get its licence to thrill for iGaming Ontario and join the province’s highly competitive sports betting and online gaming market.
So, we invited the co-founder and director of Absolutebet, Chen Truman, to be our guest on the latest episode of the Gaming News Canada. Truman is no newcomer to the business of gaming, having spent almost 15 years at Playtech including four years as a product manager. The other co-founder of Absolutebet, Benjamin Truman, founded Media Troopers and Red Apple Tech Group.
Chen Truman covered an array of topics with us, including the lengthy registration process with the AGCO, the motivation to bring its mobile-first product to Ontario, the decision for Absolutebet to focus on igaming when it launches, and what it believes will differentiate its brand from the competition in perhaps the world’s most robust legal online gambling marketplace.
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On the heels of announcing the launch of a new data destination for sports fans, fantasy players and folks who live to lay a wager, StatRankings founder and CEO Kevin Adams was our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show.
The founder of FTN Network and a former financial advisor and owner of a California hair salon franchise, Adams had a chin wag with Steve McAllister about converting his passion for fantasy sports into creating FTN and StatRankings, and also joining Underdog Fantasy as a seed investor. Adams also discussed the ever-expanding roster of data startups in the sports industry, and the appetite for fans, bettors and fantasy players to have access to as many numbers as possible.
We also asked Adams about StatRankings’ partnership with DFS subscription service One Week Season, preparing to raise the curtain on his business for the start of the NFL regular season, and what’s to come.
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As the Northern Super League enters Week 21 of its inaugural season, we caught up with the President of the new Canadian professional women’s soccer fold, Christina Litz.
Litz, who’s spent time at the Canadian Football League head office, Woodbine Entertainment and True North Sports and Entertainment during his career in the sports industry, talked about her journey from law school at the University of Manitoba and legal work at Bell Media and Telus before moving into the intersecting worlds of digital business and sports. She answered the questions from host Steve McAllister about joining NSL founder and former Canadian national soccer team standout Diana Matheson, and the challenges and opportunities in getting the new league off the ground and the NSL’s place in the long-awaited growth of professional women’s sports in North America. That included a reference to the impact Caitlin Clark has had on the landscape just before Nike announced its new logo partnership with the WNBA superstar.
The NSL and Litz, as has been the case with major professional sports leagues since the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in the U.S., and the passing of Bill C-218 in Canada, are trying to seize the opportunities around the new world of legal sports betting – especially of the online variety. Litz talked about the NSL’s efforts to partner with data companies and sportsbooks with an eye on expanding engagement around the league, its six teams, and its players.
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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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