Julien Crette, COO of GeoComply, says he knew the company needed new space for their Toronto operations, after spending a year at a shared space WeWork facility in Toronto’s Liberty Village. After a year staffing had hit around 30, and with that staff number now boosted to 50 – as well as WeWork’s well-publicized financial struggles – it was time for a move.
So this week, GeoComply formally launched its office at 1 Richmond St. W. in downtown Toronto. Crette and Lindsay Slader, SVP Compliance for GeoComply, said the space will give them a better shot at luring tech talent to the company.
GeoComply, based in Vancouver, has an office in Montreal as well. The company provides fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions that detect location fraud and help verify a user’s true digital identity. Bet99 was the latest licensed Ontario online casino to announce a partnership with GeoComply. The company’s geolocation solutions are installed on over 400 million devices and analyze over one billion transactions every month.
Office Space Can Accommodate 100 Staff
The new office space is meant to handle a staff of 100, which the Toronto operation is heading toward. The Toronto office is focused on commercial operations, customer support and IT services.
“This shows that we’re here to stay and grow the market,” Crette said. “We want to make this place exceptional so we are attracting the best tech talent.”
Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey attended the event, as did Vic Fedelli, minister of economic development, job creation and trade; Stephen Lund, CEO of Toronto Global, and various GeoComply executives, staff, as well as other industry types.
Downey played up the size of the province’s market. Since the regulated market for Ontario sports betting and iGaming went live in April 2022, the market has seen 45 licensed operators, more than 70 gaming sites, and over 943,000 active player accounts. More than $14 billion in total wagers have been placed in each of the past two quarters. That market supports 12,000 full-time jobs in the province, Downey added.
GeoComply also released Ontario market data on Monday that shed light on the size and scope of attempts to access the Ontario market from outside its borders.
Stats On Work GeoComply Is Doing
Among the highlights: 105,000 attempts from Quebec have been blocked since the start of the NFL season; there’s been a 90% increase in new player accounts in September and October (the start of NFL season, 250,000 new player accounts); in the past 30 days, GeoComply processed over 15.9 million checks within 10 kilometres of the Ontario border with a 99.8% pass rate.
Players outside the province, looking to access the Ontario online casino apps market, will spoof an IP address, use spoofing software, or find a proxy within Ontario to place wagers.
From Sept. 7 to Nov. 15 there were 750,000 out of-province attempts blocked via IP spoofing, 78,000 out-of-province attempts blocked via spoofing software for the same dates, and 2,300 out-of-province suspected proxy betting attempts, from Sept. 7 to Nov. 16.
One interesting facets: Raptors fan engagement outpaces the Maple Leafs by 73% by one metric. Leafs home games on Nov. 11 and 12 drew 1,041 average geolocation checks; Raptors home games Nov. 13 and 15 averaged 1,796 geolocation checks at online Ontario sportsbook apps.
“We believe in regulated gaming,” Slader said. “(Across Canada) there’s plenty of people playing on unlicensed sites, and they may not have access to the proper support for problem gambling issues, or they may not have the consumer protections that would otherwise be guaranteed to a regulated framework.
“There's plenty of (unlicensed operators) that are seeking out an opportunity to be licensed, if there was a new regulatory framework rolled out (in other provinces). And if you had that, you would have companies lining up looking to be regulated and be able to offer services to consumers. I think that that's definitely a direction that other provinces should be exploring.”
Photo courtesy of GeoComply
