Plenty of buzz around the Ontario sports betting market as people await DraftKings' entry onto the scene. No word on the timing of that.
We’ll update you when we hear anything new (although DraftKings Sportsbook Ontario is now running “coming soon” ads on broadcast TV).
Last week, market analyst numbers detailing the number of Ontario sports betting app downloads since April 4 when Ontario legalized online sports betting and gaming got a lot of buzz and were the subject of much conversation.
Lots of initial talk about theScore Bet running up 50% of app downloads but as the week went on that all got watered down.
As an industry source told us, it’s early in the game. Looking at the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s list of registered internet gaming operators, that number is still at 31. The Ontario iGaming website still lists 21 licensed websites operated by 13 companies.
Talk to us further down the road when the conversation turns more to value of product, brand and offers, plus customization of interface.
A Barclays study later last week had it this way, over the first 10 days of the market being open: theScore Bet with a 24% share of app downloads, bet365 at 24%, FanDuel at 20%, BetMGM Sportsbook Ontario at 11%, 888 at 6%, Betway at 5% and others splitting the remaining 10%.
Updated Morgan Stanley Numbers
Meanwhile Morgan Stanley updated its earlier market analysis (data from Sensor Tower), with theScore Bet still up top through April 23 at 33%, followed by bet365 (26%), FanDuel (16%), BetMGM (11%), Betway (4%), PointsBet/BetRivers (3/2%) and Caesars, 888 and LeoVegas at 1% each. It should be noted that bet365 was previously an offshore operator in Canada.
More telling perhaps: theScore’s download share peaked during the opening days post April 4 (65% on opening day) but slid to 16% and 12% over the last two days leading up to April 23.
Morgan Stanley said those numbers are still ahead of what was projected for theScore Bet pre-April 4.
Will Barstool Help theScore Bet?
Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy has been in Toronto all week (Penn National owns theScore Bet and Barstool) on a promo tour for theScore Bet app, so we’ll see what impact that has on download numbers.
BetMGM has continually increased its share throughout the month, according to the Morgan Stanley report, as has Bet365. FanDuel has been relatively consistent since launch, as has PointsBet Canada.
Also, in an updated Morgan Stanley report, analysts quoted early data from GeoComply, suggesting Ontario may hit $1.1 billion in gross gaming revenue this year, down from a forecast of $1.3B. Geocomply “provides fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions that detect location fraud and help verify a user's true digital identity,” according to its website.
We’ll continue to monitor all this, as the first month of legal sports betting in Ontario comes to an end.
