Ontario, home to the largest regulated iGaming market in North America, will see one of its operators shut down its Ontario online casino and sports betting sites at the end of this month. Fitzdares revealed that news to its customers earlier this week.
A representative for the United Kingdom-based operator told OntarioBets.com on Tuesday the withdrawal from the province will take effect at the end of this month.
“We have loved Ontario, and made some great friends, but the cost of doing business was becoming prohibitive,” Clive Harris said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the competitive and regulatory environment closely, as we gear up for exciting times ahead.”
After Fitzdares’ departure, 49 operators approved by iGaming Ontario will remain active as Ontario online casino apps. Those companies run more than 80 online casino, sports betting, poker and bingo sites.
European Operators Find Ontario Challenging
Fitzdares is not the first to pull up its stakes in Ontario, where commercial iGaming began nearly three years ago. Unibet left the province a year ago after parent company Kindred Group completed a strategic review and left North America altogether. Coolbet ended its Ontario site two years ago.
All three of those operators are based in Europe, and their reasons for leaving are similar.
Some European operators have found North American markets to be tough sledding, especially because of the amount of promotional and marketing spending by such operators as DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. In Canada’s largest province, Ontario betting sites operators cannot list such promos as bonus bets or odds boosts without customers directly agreeing to get them.
Market Growing; What Could Be Next?
Even as operators leave the market, Ontario continues to see its market grow. According to iGaming Ontario, the approved sites combined to produce a handle of $7.84 billion in January. That’s a 31% increase in a year-over-year comparison from the $5.98 billion wagered in January 2024.
Online casino operators accounted for $6.51 billion of those wagers, and sportsbooks accepted $1.18 billion worth of bets. Peer-to-peer Ontario online poker, meanwhile, reported $146 million in betting traffic for the month.
Ontario does not publish handle and revenue data for operators.
Fitzdares almost assuredly will not be the last operator to leave the Ontario iGaming market. Given the number of competitors, other operators fighting for market share will also come to a similar conclusion. That’s the nature of an open market. Just like gambling, there will be winners and losers.
Ontario’s numbers show there’s room for a lot of operators, but Fitzdares’ announcement should serve as a call for other operators to assess their position in the province. While the number of operators has dropped, the competition to attract Ontario customers is increasing. To succeed, operators must find a way to stand out, in a good way. That could be through new products, better odds, outstanding customer service, increased advertising or word of mouth through referrals.
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