GeoComply releases Ontario Anniversary Risk Report

The geolocation data firm has released data on the first year of regulated igaming.

Canada.- The geolocation data firm GeoComply has released a Ontario Anniversary Risk Report one year after the Canadian province opened its regulated igaming and online sports betting market. The provider of geolocation and anti-fraud services to Ontario’s operators shows evidence that the market is attracting attention from around the world.

The report highlights 19.9m login attempts worldwide and over 219,000 login attempts from devices associated with fraud since the market debuted in 2022. GeoComply also detected 1,045 fraud rings affecting multiple operators.

GeoComply director of risk services Danny DiRienzo said: “Online fraud is not uniquely a sports betting or igaming problem. Recent data shows that cybercrimes were up 50 per cent in 2022 across all forms of e-commerce. However, our industry’s high standards of compliance put us in a strong position to combat it. Because every bettor must verify their location, we have the data to stop fraud before it gets a foothold.”

In one year, the new legal igaming market in Ontario generated CAD$35.6bn ($26.5bn) in wagers and approximately $1.4bn in gaming revenue. That places the Canadian province among the top five igaming jurisdictions in North America, according to iGaming Ontario (iGO).

The most popular sport to bet on was basketball at 28 per cent of betting wagers, followed by soccer at 15 per cent, football at 14 per cent, then hockey at 9 per cent and baseball at 8 per cent.

Report shows 85% of Ontario players are on regulated sites

A new report conducted by research company Ipsos, and commissioned by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and iGaming Ontario, found that more than 85.3 per cent of players are playing on regulated sites in Ontario.

The survey, conducted one year after the launch of Ontario’s open internet gaming market, shows “the considerable success the province has had shifting players from gambling on unregulated sites to regulated sites that comply with Ontario’s high standards of game integrity and player protections.”