The sport of kings is back on the menu of one of Ontario’s many sports betting sites — but it’s a biggie.
Woodbine Entertainment Group CEO Jim Lawson announced Wednesday that wagering on horse racing, including this Sunday's King's Plate Stakes in Toronto, is available to bettors in Ontario via bet365.
The news has been more than a year in the making, as Woodbine has been trying to become the back-end provider of pari-mutuel wagering for the legion of legal sports betting operators offering Ontario sports betting.
With Wednesday’s announcement, Woodbine now has a foot in the only competitive market for online sports betting and casino gambling in Canada, which has already yielded billions of dollars in wagering since it launched in April 2022.
“If this industry is not part of that growth sector, we would have been in real trouble,” Lawson said during a King’s Plate-related breakfast event.
Horse racing is once again up and running on bet365 in Ontario. But there's a note that it's "Operated by Woodbine Entertainment Group." That's because Woodbine is the only entity in Ontario with a pari-mutuel wagering license and is really the one processing the action. pic.twitter.com/lhmJ81J65I
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) August 17, 2023
Woodbine was boxed out of the Ontario sports betting scene for very Canadian reasons. As a result, under the current legal and regulatory structure in the country, Ontario-regulated sportsbooks couldn’t offer wagering on horse racing, only Woodbine could.
That meant the only legal way to wager on horse racing in Ontario was at the track, off-track betting facilities, and using the two digital platforms offered by Woodbine itself, HPIbet and Dark Horse Bets. Operators such as bet365, which was available in Ontario before the launch of its new regulated market in April 2022, yanked horse racing from their wagering menus when they came under provincial oversight.
Woodbine was successful in lobbying for the exclusion of horse racing from the bill that legalized single-event wagering in Canada in the summer of 2021. But Lawson noted Wednesday that Woodbine still wanted sportsbook operators to be able to offer horse racing — albeit in partnership with Woodbine itself, ensuring the horse-racing industry would financially benefit.
So, while bet365 will now offer pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing to its customers, the bets will be processed behind the scenes by Woodbine, and the horse-racing industry will get a cut of the handle. On Thursday, the web browser version of bet365 in Ontario was offering horse racing with a note that it was "Operated by Woodbine Entertainment Group."
The next generation of horseplayers
Furthermore, Woodbine and the horse-racing industry are now in a position to win over a new generation of horseplayers who could be introduced to the sport via bet365 (and perhaps, eventually, other apps as well). The grey-market presence bet365 once had means it is one of the biggest online sportsbook operators in Ontario, if not the biggest.
“In addition to being that revenue source, we're now going to have the opportunity to reach out to a whole new demographic of fans and wagering customers,” Lawson said.
The timing of Wednesday’s announcement is important, as the 164th running of the King’s Plate at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto is this Sunday. It’s also the first time since 1951 that the race is going by the King’s Plate, as it is named after the ruling British monarch and is being run for the first time since the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
