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Single Sports Betting in Canada
This February, Joe Comartin, an opposition Member of Parliament for Windsor-Tecumseh, introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to amend the Criminal Code (the “Code”) to allow the provincial governments to offer betting on single sporting events. This is not the first time Mr. Comartin has offered up such a bill. He has in the past worked in association with the Canadian Gaming Association and the Canadian Auto Workers union to obtain such amendments.
Private member’s bills usually have little chance of being enacted into law, but they are often proposed as a means of initiating or continuing debate on a subject. Many provincial governments are known to be in favour of such an amendment. The two provinces that have made the most inroads into online gaming, British Columbia and Quebec, are among those governments. As these two provinces have pioneered state-conducted online poker in Canada, the next major threshold they may wish to cross would be becoming the first state-conducted online sports betting in Canada.
The present Code provisions restricting provincial governments’ ability to offer sports betting derive from the 1985 amendments to the Code. These restrictions, which remain in the Code today, implicitly reject traditional sportsbook operations by expressly forbidding betting on the outcomes of single sporting events and athletic contests, as well as any sort of betting on fights or races. In 1985, these limitations were inserted in part on the basis of the rationale that such betting would create the incentive for match-fixing, potentially damaging the integrity of sport. This has had the effect of forcing the provincial governments to offer sports betting solely in the format of “parlays” or “combi-bets,” wherein the bettors must correctly choose more than one outcome in order to win.
Sports betting conducted by the provincial governments, usually through the auspices of provincial lottery corporations, relies upon the exemption created by ss. 207(1)(a) of the Code to the Code’s general prohibitions against betting. In order to qualify for this exemption, such sports betting must fit within the Code definition of a “lottery scheme.” That definition is found in ss. 207(4) of the Code, and while it includes “bets,” ss. 207(4)(b) explicitly excludes “bookmaking, pool-selling or the making or recording of bets...on any race or fight, or on a single sport event or athletic contest.” The bill put forward by Mr. Comartin would repeal ss. 207(4)(b) of the Code in its entirety.
In the absence of amendments to the Code, there are other creative ways in which the provincial governments could offer betting, online and otherwise, without being trapped in the “parlay” or “combi-bet” format. Proposition betting is one such option. Many provincial lottery corporations offer proposition bets, in which wagers are placed on the outcome or a proposition of a particular event happening, besides the ultimate outcome of the contest or event. A “prop bet” can be based upon a one-of-a-kind happenstance: e.g., the outcome of the first play of the Super Bowl, or the first player to score in a game. It can also be based on the statistics accumulated by players or teams during play. At present, the provincial lottery corporations only offer proposition betsona“parlay”or“combi-bet”basis: Playersmustchoosecorrectly on more than one proposition in order to win their bets.
In our view, this restriction is not required by ss. 207(4)(b) of the Code. The “single sport bet” restriction provides that it is unlawful for a provincial government to offer bets “on a single sport event or athletic contest.” A proposition bet based upon statistics accumulated during a game is not a bet “on a single sport event or athletic contest.” A bet on statistics accumulated during the course of an athletic contest is not a bet on the outcome of that contest, nor is one betting on a “single sport event” when the outcome of the bet is determined by statistics that measure the accomplishments of players or teams during a game, without relying upon the outcome of any single event.
Betting on non-athletic events is also not restricted by the “single bet” ban enacted by ss. 207(4)(b) of the Code. That restriction applies solely to bets on “sport” or “athletic” matters, reflecting its roots in concerns about match-fixing. Therefore, single-event bets on non-sporting matters can be offered by provincial lottery corporations. This opens the door to offering bets on the outcomes of elections, reality TV shows, awards shows for movies or music, or any other event not involving sports or athletics.
The entry of provincial governments into the field of online betting will only increase their interest in obtaining amendments to the Code to permit single-sports betting. While there are ways to begin offering attractive online betting options pending such an amendment, we can expect the provincial governments to continue to push for amendments, perhaps with other betting industry stakeholders acting as their proxies.
Benefits at the border
Speaking to this issue in a recent article in the Windsor Star, Canadian Gaming Association VP Paul Burns noted that the CGA has seen no opposition from MPs on allowing single sports betting. What's more, Burns argues that since this style of betting only legal in Nevada south of the border, making it available in Canadian casinos would go far in attracting US gamers to border casinos.
"The Windsor-Detroit gaming market is still a billion-dollar market, but a lot of sits on the Detroit side now, whereas all of it used to sit on the Windsor side," noted Burns.
By Michael D. Lipton, Q.C. and Kevin J. Weber with Canadian Gaming Lawyer
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