One thing PointsBet Canada CEO Scott Vanderwel emphasized Wednesday during a Canadian Gaming Summit panel discussion on the status quo of the online gaming industry in Canada: 87 percent of players in Ontario have opted into the regulated industry, with all the benefits that brings.

During another panel shortly afterwards, iGaming Ontario (iGO) Executive Director Martha Otton, along with Duncan Hannay, President and CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG); Karin Schnarr, CEO, Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario; and Jim Warren, OLG Chair, quantified Vanderwel’s statement with the results of a Deloitte economic development report released earlier in the day by iGO.

In its second year of operation, Ontario’s regulated competitive igaming market sustained nearly 15,000 jobs, and added a combined CA$1.24 billion (US$905 million) to federal, provincial, and municipal government revenues, according to Deloitte’s Economic Contributions of Ontario’s Regulated iGaming Market – Year 2.

“I would say really significantly is the direct jobs have increased…from last year to this year,” Otton said, pointing to Flutter, PointsBet, Rush Street and others, and suppliers such as GeoComply, opening Ontario offices, providing employment “with good-paying jobs.”

Average salary in the business is CA$122,000, according to the report, well above the median salary. In 2022, 1,803 direct jobs were created; in 2023-24 that number was 2,675.

Ontario’s regulated competitive igaming market, not including igaming offered by OLG, sustained 2,800 more full-time-equivalent jobs in its second year than in its first, according to Deloitte.

“So, these offices that have located in Toronto and other communities, they’re now paying property tax and those types of things, and that doesn’t even get into the spinoffs, that these people are buying groceries, going to movies, all that sort of thing. I can easily and quite often do point to the direct gross gaming revenue [that’s coming from igaming], from what we’ve been able to accomplish, but I think maybe the bigger, better story is what it’s doing to the broader economy.”

Out of the total government revenue generated, CA$790 million supported provincial government revenues, CA$380 million supported federal government revenue, and CA$75 million supported municipal government revenues.

That revenue comes from things such as taxes on products and production, like sales tax, corporate and personal incomes taxes, and the 20 percent government share of the gaming revenue generated by iGO operators.

The regulated igaming market contributed CA$2.7 billion to Ontario’s GDP in its second year of operation, up from CA$1.58 billion in its first year, according to the report.

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