Ontario launched online gambling on April 4, 2022, and while its first full quarter performance received a rather lukewarm welcome, the results for the second quarter of FY22-23 seem quite a bit more inspiring.

Q2 Results Are Great

Ontario’s iGaming market includes online casinos, online sports betting, and online poker, and iGaming Ontario (iGO) released the Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Q2 market performance report on Wednesday, October 12. It contains information about the total wagers placed, what the market produced in terms of total gaming revenue, active operators, active player accounts, the average monthly sum spent per active account, and more.

According to the report, the results for the second quarter – July 1 through September 30, 2022 – amount to a CA$6.04 billion (US$4.37 billion) handle, CA$267 million (US$193.19 million) in total gaming revenue. This is up from the first quarter results, which were CA$4.07 billion ($3.11 billion at the time) in total wagers places and CA$162 million ($123.8 million at that time) in total gaming revenue. That’s more than a 48% increase in betting handle and almost 65% in total gaming revenue.

There’s also an increase in the number of operators licensed in Ontario, jumping from 18 to 24 between the two quarters, which also led to more websites where bettors can play, which increased from 31 in Q1, to 42 in Q2. Of course, with more diversity and options for players, and as the industry picks up steam in general, the active player base also saw a noticeable uptick, growing from 492,000 to 620,000. A slight uptick in the average monthly spend per active player was reported, up CA$29 – from CA$113 in Q1 to CA$142 in Q2.

Q3 Market Outlook

The results from Q1 got a somewhat lukewarm reception, back when they were announced by iGO in August. This was mostly because – as good as the results were – they were still well below the more optimistic projections, especially ones made with US market comparisons in mind. So, a comparison based on the results that New Jersey had made – being the most prominent online gambling market in the US – might paint a rather underwhelming picture.

However, the Q2 results show that Ontarians are getting accustomed to iGaming rather well, and operators seem to be following generally the same trend. Projections for Q3 are also rather good, as Ontario approved nine new iGaming brands at the beginning of this month. This, along with the market growing and maturing, should bolster the Q3 results nicely.

While more operators mean more entry points for players, it’s important to note that iGO considers only the total number of active accounts that have cash and/or promotional betting activity on them. This means that the number reported is not representative of the total number of unique players, as a player can have multiple personal accounts with multiple operators.