The highly-competitive Ontario online gaming market continues to produce major revenue for governmental bodies and the newly-proposed provincial budget offered a glimpse of that last week as the industry celebrated two years in the province.
The budget also offered a look at what provincial officials expect from the industry in the coming years. In total, iGaming Ontario (iGO) produced $87 million in revenue for the government in the 2022-23 fiscal year and almost doubled that for the most recent fiscal year.
“The budget projected that iGO will have provided $162 million by the time the figures are in from the current fiscal year 2023-24, rising to $174 million for the new fiscal year 2024-25,” Canadian Gaming Business reported. “All told, that adds up to an estimated $423 million in revenue for Ontario through the first three years of the market.”
Growth Continues
The news comes as other provinces such as Alberta are considering regulating their own markets and industry insiders continue lobbying Quebec regulators to consider doing the same. If the revenue projections are accurate, this would greatly exceed initial estimates for the industry.
Before the launch in April 2022, an Ontario Auditor General report predicted regulating the market would produce about $75 million through 2025. The Ontario market now has 50 operators and 70 websites offering online casino gaming, sports betting, and poker.
Beyond the online gaming operators themselves, the provincial economy has also benefited by numerous companies serving those operators also entering the province as well.
The budget estimates that Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s lottery, casino, and online gaming operations produced $2.5 billion in revenue for the province for 2022-23 and expects that number to be about the same for the upcoming fiscal year.
The OLG 2022-23 annual report points to how important all forms of gaming revenue have become for the province and how the growth of the regulated online gaming market has added to that. Online gaming revenue accounted for about 7.3% of the OLG’s gross revenue in 2022-23, the first year of regulated iGaming. Lottery sales brought in 47.4% and traditional casino gaming produced 45.4% of the crown corporation’s gross income.
“The board of directors is proud to see OLG deliver on its purpose to generate revenue for the province, invest in our communities to create a positive impact and uphold the highest standards of responsible gambling in everything we do, while acting in the best interests of Ontario,” OLG board chairman Jim Warren said in the group’s annual report. “We are also pleased by OLG’s financial achievements during fiscal 2022-23, despite the ongoing recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, OLG achieved record returns to the province of Ontario.”
