“Be the change you wish to see in the world” is a phrase that has inspired me and countless others. It is typically attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but we are vigorous fact-checkers at GME Law and won’t be making that mistake. What Gandhi actually said was “if we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a [person] changes [their] own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward [them]…We need not wait to see what others do.” Totally inspiring! Not only to me but also to NorthStar Gaming Holdings Inc. (operator of NorthStarBets.com) who announced plans to launch its online casino and sportsbook across Canada. Tired of waiting for province-by-province regulation? No problem – just launch in the rest of Canada. Eventually, the Canadian iGaming regulation space will change.
The press release states that “NorthStarBets.com will be offered through a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company acquired earlier this year with the purchase of Slapshot Media Inc. as the first step towards national expansion.”
NorthStar, through Slapshot, provides managed services to Spreads.ca. Spreads.ca is an iGaming site owned and operated by the Abenaki Council of Wolinak and licensed by the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission.
NorthStar is advertising its rest-of-Canada-facing operation as licensed and regulated by the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission. This is also an approach that other Ontario registered operators have taken. Practically, the KGC has been regulating gaming for over 25 years and there has yet to be an incident with Canadian authorities. Legally, provided that the KGC has legal authority to regulate gaming, does that mean that licensees are allowed to offer bets to players throughout Canada? If so, why bother with an Ontario license at all?
If you’re NorthStar or NorthStar adjacent, you’re reading this (please read this) and thinking “So what! How many of the other 46 Ontario-registered operators are active throughout Canada?” First of all, the answer is more than half. But none are publicly traded on a Canadian stock exchange. And announcing (loudly) a Canadian expansion at a time when (in my opinion) tensions between provincial lottery corporations and private operators are at an all-time high is not something we are seeing from other operators right now.
Ontario’s iGaming launch was far from an equal playing field, as operators launching before a certain date were able to bring in their grey market operations, putting the other operators, like NorthStar, at a disadvantage. NorthStar is betting on a similar grey-market transition period in other provinces and has assessed the risk as low. And why not? The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario doesn’t care about registered operators’ activities in other provinces. Historically there has been almost no action taken against operators offering iGaming to Canadians. Further, challenging NorthStar could be considered as challenging the legitimacy of the Kahnawà:ke license, and I don’t think there is an appetite for that. Who knows if and when other provinces will decide to regulate iGaming? And finally, maybe NorthStar will be rewarded for their Canada-wide expansion and be allowed to bring in their grey market activity.
I appreciate the risk that NorthStar is taking. Perhaps the most appropriate quote is a mash-up of Gandhi and another inspirational historical figure: the Nature Boy Ric Flair: In order to be the change, you have to beat the change (wooo!).
