SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Canada appears to be split once more regarding its sports betting future, as the ruling Liberal Party has refused to support Bill C-122: ‘The Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act’.
Pro betting stakeholders, had begun the week eager for C-122 policies to be reviewed by Ottawa’s House of Commons on Tuesday.
However, hopes of progress for C-122 were quickly dashed as the Liberal Party changed its stance regarding the proposition of single sports betting in Canada.
The policy U-turn angered pro betting campaigners, as the Liberal Party had been in favour of legalising failed bill C-290 when in opposition.
Liberal MP Sean Casey broke the news of his party’s decision to oppose C-122. Casey detailed to Canadian news sources that the government held continued concerns regarding the integrity of sporting events.
“It is possible, as suggested by many sports leagues, that legalising single-event sports betting could encourage gamblers to fix games,”
“Canada’s current parlay system of betting makes it unattractive to fix a game, because the only way to achieve a guaranteed payout would be to rig multiple events, which would be much more difficult to accomplish. Single-event sports betting would make a fraudster’s task easier since only one event would need to be fixed.”
Windsor MP Brian Masse, a staunch supporter of legalised sports betting in Canada, was quick to criticise Casey and the Liberal Party’s decision. Masse accused the Liberal Party of hypocrisy stating the it had supported previous versions of the bill.
Masse further pointed that the current parlay system was no longer suitable to consumer needs, which was forcing Canadian citizens to gamble illegally. Masse reminded the Liberal government that multiple economic, political and policing stakeholders had backed single sports betting.
“With the Liberals, you’ve just got to be prepared for them switching position,” Masse stated
“I think that they poorly planned this out, and their arguments against the bill were based upon information that’s more than three years old.”
