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.
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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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:
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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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