NFL kicks off a fulsome fall on the sports wagering front
It's full speed ahead for the gaming industry as it leaves summer behind, especially when it comes to four-down football. BCLC releases its annual report, and more reaction to last week's AGCO news.
In this issue:
Let the NFL (and fall betting) season begin
BCLC releases annual service plan report
More reaction to AGCO ad announcement
Let the NFL (and fall sports betting) season begin
Are you ready for some (NFL) football?
Well, according to the American Gaming Association, our neighbours to the south certainly are when it comes to placing a bob on the over-under, the moneyline, a player prop, a single game parlay, etc., etc., etc. On the eve of the start of the NFL regular season this evening (Lions-Chiefs, 8:20 ET for our friends sans cable, wireless and a newspaper subscription), the AGA released survey results showing that 73.5 million Amaricans will bet on the NFL this season. That’s not too far south of one-third of adults across the land of the free, and the home of the brave - and a staggering increase of almost 60 per cent from the results of the AGA’s 2022 survey (the AP’s David Lieb did some reporting on attempts in regulated states to keep pace with support for problem gamblers with the rapid rise in legal betting).
While there’s no such data available for sports bettors accessing Ontario’s regulated sportsbooks, and the retail and online products of the provincial lottery and gaming corporations from coast-to-coast-to-coast, it’s a safe bet (see what we did there!) that we’re also in double digits when it comes to Canadian adults wagering on the four-down game.
How else to explain the flurry of marketing, advertising and promotional activity happening in the lead-up to tonight’s opening kickoff at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium? To wit:
theScore is launching this morning its fall marketing campaign with new ads that tout the combination of sports content and sports betting provided by the Brand Built by La Famille Levy (and now owned by Penn Entertainment, proprietors of the soon-to-come ESPN Bet):
Included in a news release from Bell Media on Tuesday laying out its NFL plans was the return of the FanDuel Sunday segments with Tekeyah Singh and former CFL/NFL player Davis Sanchez. TSN’s comms folks confirmed yesterday that the network will broadcast ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show beginning today (noon-2 p.m. on TSN, and noon-3 ET on TSN+).
Jamie Foxx tinkles the ivories in his latest commercial for BetMGM:
FanDuel’s U.S. business distributed at the beginning of the week a rich inventory of infographics, including:
New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel, and four-time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski will be regular weekly guests on FanDuel TV’s Up & Adams for Season 2. Gronk also spent some of his summer high-fiving and taking selfies with FD employees at the operator’s U.S. offices.
Also popping up on the GNC radar from various operators and LGCs:
DraftKings passed along some facts and figures, including the Chiefs receiving an overwhelming 41 per cent of the action to win the Super Bowl from customers in Ontario:
Among the notes and numbers sent our way by OLG comms boss Tony Bitonti is the Bills being the favourite to win the AFC championship by 22 per cent of ProLine players, and Ja’Marr Chase attracting 19 per cent of wagers to be the NFL’s offensive player of the year.
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More on NFL opening night
While we’re still in the first quarter of Canada’s regulated sports betting and igming industry, CDC Gaming Reports beat writer Buck Wargo did some keyboarding on the NFL season kick-starting a “pivotal year” for online gaming companies in the U.S.
Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post lays out in great detail the struggles the NFL has gone through with its gambling policy as the league enters a season that will end with the first-ever Super Bowl in Las Vegas.
Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports chronicled the opportunities and challenges for the league in this still-new world of betting.
The state of Kentucky. . . umm. . . . kicks off its legal sports wagering marketplace today.
Covers beat writer Geoff Zochodne reports on the limited options available around fantasy football for Ontario players.
The NFL, through its partnership with Enthusiast Gaming, is bringing back NFL Tuesday Night Gaming for a second season.
Aristocrat Gaming, with the blessing of the league and the NFL Players Association, has begun distributing its Super Bowl Jackpots slot games to casinos across eight U.S. states.
BettingLadies.com has made available a dedicated NFL section on its website.
Sports Handle’s Matt Rybalowski had an interesting tweet off the news last week that Verizon is making substantial cell network updates to the home of the Giants and Jets.
Speaking of Sports Handle, the betting coverage website has a live blog going leading up to tonight’s opening game.
Jason Ence, tinkling the keyboard on Covers.com, has some information and advice for folks curious about microbetting.
Industry veteran Richard Schuetz has some words of wisdom for folks who like to bet on football.
Simplebet, which announced last week a new partnership with Bet99, unveiled yesterday its new microbetting products, including a Same Drive Parlay.
Daily fantasy sports newcomer GameBlazers is opening in time for the start of the NFL campaign.
FTN Network has brought on board football data industry savant Aaron Schatz as its chief analytics officer. Schatz will be busy with both the written word and on a bi-weekly podcast.
SharpLink Gaming has created a free-to-play fantasy survivor game with SB Nation and DraftKings as partners.
Speaking of SharpLink, the Minnesota-based business has also launched a new LeagueSafe app for fantasy football players.
Veteran sportsbook trader Phill Gray of Sports Interaction is scheduled to be among our guests this afternoon as we bring back from summer hiatus the Gaming News Canada Show presented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP on LinkedIn Audio (please don’t forget our new start time of 1 p.m. ET).
Highlights from BCLC’s annual report
Whilst we await the release of OLG’s 2022-23 annual report (we’re told it’s in the hands of Douglas Ford and Co. for approval, but the provincial government is dealing with not-so-greener pastures these days, so. . . ), the British Columbia Lottery Corporation’s Annual Service Plan Report was made public right before the start of the Labour Day Weekend.
Your numbers-challenged correspondent gave a gleaning of the 78-page document, and grabbed some highlights to serve as a summary for our loyal readers:
BCLC produced an unprecedented net income of $1.636 billion for the past fiscal year - the first post-COVID-19 pandemic. $1.624 billion was e-transferred to the province of B.C., and $12 million to the federal government.
Among the reasons pointed out for sparking that record amount was the expansion of its PlayNow.com product into Saskatchewan, and the opening of the Cascades Casino Delta.
The corp’s egaming operations accounted for 18 per cent of that net income:
$4.5 million was spent on responsible gambling strategy while $15.1 million was steered towards the province’s gaming policy and enforcement branch.
BCLC launched Game Break, an enhanced self-exclusion program, and also put in place more stringent identification requirements at casinos across the province.
The report also includes a section on the establishment of Ontario’s regulated sports betting and igaming market and how, according to the corp, it has impacted PlayNow.com. From the report:
In 2022, Ontario launched licensing of private-sector online gambling sites in that province. This shift has had effects across the Canadian online gambling landscape and resulted in a significant increase in advertising for sites which are licensed in Ontario but operating unregulated in other provinces. This is blurring the line between those sites and provincially regulated gambling sites that create revenue and jobs for their respective provinces. This has caused confusion for players who may be unaware that PlayNow.com is the only legal gambling website in B.C. and has created challenges for PlayNow.com to continue to maintain its significant market share.
In his Letter from the CEO which leads the report, BCLC head honcho Pat Davis also mentions advertising by “many unregulated gambling websites”:
During 2022/23, there was also an influx of new advertisements from many unregulated gambling websites targeting players through marketing campaigns and enticing sign-up bonuses. That is why BCLC has joined with a number of other provincial entities to raise awareness of the implications associated with misleading advertising and operation of unregulated gambling websites, which do not provide employment or financial benefits to the Province and present risks related to money laundering, gambling addiction and game integrity.
Davis is referring to the creation of Coalition of Provincial Lottery Corporations just over a year ago, with the BCLC, Loto-Québec, Atlantic Lottery, Alberta Gaming Liquor & Cannabis, Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, and more recently, the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority as its members.
Thoughts and layers to AGCO announcement, Part Deux
As expected, there continues to be reaction to last week’s announcement by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario that amendments to the rules around advertising will include the banning of athletes (with an exception around responsible gambling messaging).
The headline in a news release/statement from Ontario’s NDP Party that we came across late last week caused us to, in the words of Bob McCown, to raise a Spockian eyebrow. Before we turned off the laptop for the Labour Day weekend, we came across some other reaction:
Mark Keast of CDC Gaming Reports wrote about the new standards leaving as many questions as answers.
Rivalry founder/CEO Steven Salz told Geoff Dixon of the CBC that the changes in the standards will force operators to be “more creative” in moving away from athletes and celebrities when it comes to advertising/marketing campaigns.
Nathalie Bergeron, the spokesperson for the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, appeared on the Radio Canada Midi Info show with Alec Castonguay last week to discuss (en francais) the amendments to the ad standards in Ontario.
On SBC’s iGaming Daily podcast, Jessica Welman, Nick Ware and Ted Orme-Claye discuss how the AGCO’s new rules compare with other jurisdictions on the planet.
As Matthew Lomon of Play Canada keyboarded Tuesday, the new rules of engagement place no limits on the number of ads that can be placed. Later that day, this tweet from sports media follower Adam Seaborn showed up on the Twitter/Xverse:
To call the document released by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission with its ruling a slightly daunting read is akin to suggesting that Patrick Mahomes has some athletic ability. So, we’ve grabbed the words most relevant to the audience in this corner.
Given the challenges facing discretionary services and in order to provide them with the regulatory flexibility to be more competitive while awaiting the regulatory reforms stemming from the new Broadcasting Act, the Commission considers that the advertising time limit for discretionary services should be removed immediately. Consequently, the Commission, by majority decision, amends the advertising time limit requirement that applies to discretionary services.
More specifically, the Commission approves the application submitted by Quebecor Media Inc., on behalf of TVA Group Inc., to remove the advertising time limit of 12 minutes per clock hour on its discretionary services. It also removes the advertising time limit for all other discretionary services, but maintains the requirement that they not broadcast any paid advertising material other than paid national advertising, unless otherwise authorized by the Commission. Moreover, the Commission removes the limit on local advertising of 6 minutes per clock hour that was imposed on third-language discretionary services.
For now (don’t forget Senator Marty Deacon introduced Bill S-269 back in June to create a federal framework around sports betting advertising), you should expect at least the status quo when it comes to the volume of ads - especially in these challenging times for the Canadian media industry.
The happenings around the AGCO in a busy August - including the long-awaited new ad standards - will be among the topics for discussion on LinkedIn Audio this afternoon (as always, your questions and opinions are welcome).
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