An Ontario government agency is searching for a way to allow concerned sports bettors and casino players in Canada’s most populous province to ban themselves from any regulated website with relative ease.
iGaming Ontario (iGO) announced on Wednesday it had released a request for proposals for a software-as-a-service-based “centralized self-exclusion solution,” and that it would accept bids until April 24.
“Partnering with iGO on this multi-year project offers a unique and exciting opportunity for forward-thinking and innovative organizations prepared to make a lasting positive impact on the igaming landscape in Ontario,” the agency said in a press release.
One and done
It’s through iGO that Ontario allows private-sector operators of online casinos, sportsbooks, and poker rooms to legally take action from residents (although that legality is being challenged in court). The province’s competitive iGaming market, the first of its kind for Canada, launched in April 2022 and has since welcomed dozens of operators and sites.
Putting together the regulatory framework took months of work, and the oversight of operators is ongoing. That said, a centralized self-exclusion system has been on iGO’s to-do list since the iGaming market launched, and it has remained MIA as online gambling in Ontario has blown up.
Self-exclusion is a tool used to help someone with problem gambling concerns take those risks off the table by not allowing themselves to wager at all.
While operators offer their own self-exclusion tools to customers, in a competitive market like Ontario’s there is an army of bookmakers to choose from. A centralized self-exclusion system could allow a bettor to ban themselves from gambling on one website and have that ban take effect on any regulated site in the province.
“A centralized self-exclusion program requires an integrated effort across all Ontario regulated operator platforms and technology systems while ensuring that player privacy is protected by a program that is secure and confidential,” iGO told Covers last year. "Accordingly, the centralized self-exclusion program is being informed by best practices identified in academic research and from learnings across international jurisdictions with multi-Operator igaming self-exclusion programs.”
There are now around 50 operators in Ontario's competitive iGaming market, and those companies are offering roughly 70 or so different websites for online casino gambling, sports betting, and poker.
For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, $17.2 billion was wagered at those sites by 1.2 million active player accounts in Ontario, according to iGO. That translated into $658 million in total gaming revenue, about 20% of which was retained by the province.
Let the bidding begin
A notice of proposed procurement for the centralized self-exclusion system was posted by iGO in November. A formal request for proposals was published on Wednesday and will remain open until the end of the work day on April 24.
The winning bidder for the self-exclusion contract will develop a system for iGO that "[i]ntegrates seamlessly with all Ontario igaming operators’ systems, including Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG)’s igaming site" and "[p]rovides anyone 19+ with easy access to create and manage their self-exclusion profile," iGO says.
Whoever emerges victorious from the RFP process must also implement “Know Your Customer (KYC) identity verification, registration, renewal, and reinstatement processes that are intuitive, simple, and offer supporting information.”
