UPDATE: The Senate adjourned on Thursday, May 6 until Tuesday, May 25.
The Senate of Canada has begun debating legislation that could legalize single-game sports betting across the country, with the bill’s sponsor in the upper house seeing a "good chance" of getting it passed before the current session of Parliament ends if progress is made.
Bill C-218, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, was introduced in the Senate last week after being passed by the House of Commons earlier in April. The legislation, if it eventually does become law, would end the longstanding ban on single-game betting in Canada and allow for regulation by the provinces.
Conservative David Wells is the bill’s sponsor in the Senate — picking up the baton from Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, who introduced and sponsored the private member’s legislation in the House of Commons — and was first to speak about it Tuesday evening in Ottawa after moving it for second reading.
Wells, a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador, suggested the rules and regulations that provinces currently have in place for the sports-betting products they can offer, such as parlays, could be extended to single-game betting.
“Colleagues, if this bill passes, these stringent provincial regulations, frameworks and consumer protections would all apply to single-event sports betting and the product would be brought safely into the well-regulated light of day,” Wells said.
The regulation of single-game betting, Wells noted, could include age and identity verification, as well as information and data sharing that could be used to prevent match-fixing, which is the chief reason for the single-game betting ban.
Wells took a few questions from his fellow senators following his remarks in the chamber. Debate on Bill C-218 was then adjourned shortly after until the Senate’s next sitting, which is Wednesday.
The legalization legislation will have to pass a vote in the Senate before it is likely sent off to a committee for further review. It could then be amended before being sent back to the full Senate for more consideration and a third reading.
If there are no amendments made to C-218 by the Senate and it is passed by the chamber, it can receive Royal Assent and become law. If there are amendments, the House of Commons will have to consider them, and the two houses of Parliament must come to an agreement on the bill, as they must pass identical versions before it can become law.
Clock is ticking
The clock, then, is ticking to get the legislation passed before another election can be called, which would end the current session of Parliament and effectively kill the bill. That may be unlikely in the near future, with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, but it has happened in the past and may become more likely as Canada’s vaccination efforts continue.
In an interview with Covers before his opening speech, Wells said the hope is to have C-218 in front of a committee by early next week. The Senate is currently scheduled for seven weeks in May and June in which it will sit before a summer break.
Asked about the likelihood of getting the bill passed, Wells said a lot depends on how long it will take to get it through committee, where he expects a thorough study. However, the Senator also said that the legislation appears to have “widespread support” among his colleagues.
“There may be some amendments at committee, or it may pass through committee unamended, in which case, it comes back to chamber,” Wells added. “If we can get it to that point, there's a good chance we can get it passed before the session ends.”
'Into the light'
Canadians who want to bet on sports other than horse racing must currently do so with a parlay, forcing them to correctly predict the outcome of at least two or more games to win. However, Bill C-218 would amend Canada’s Criminal Code to allow the provinces (or a person or company they license) to offer betting on single sporting events except for horse racing, which would remain under federal oversight.
Bill C-218 was passed by the House of Commons and sent off to the Senate in April, with broad support among MPs. Even so, previous attempts at legalizing single-game betting have come up short in Canada's bicameral Parliament, including Bill C-290, which got stuck and died in the Senate when the 2015 federal election was called.
Still, the latest effort comes in the wake of a 2018 Supreme Court decision that has led to legal sports betting sweeping across the United States and drawing support from professional sports leagues that were previously opposed to such widespread activity.
Canadians are also already wagering approximately $10 billion a year on sports through illegal bookmaking operations, as well as $4 billion more via offshore websites, according to the Canadian Gaming Association. A much smaller share, around $500 million, is bet on sports using the products provided by the provinces. Bill C-218’s passage could allow Canadian governments to increase their share.
“We must take this back from the black and grey markets and bring it into the light,” Wells told his fellow Senators. “Colleagues, this is a bill that we should all support. A vote against it would not be a vote against gambling, it would be a vote against increased safeguards, regulations and community programming.”
