Advertising a primary focus for authorities in Ontario’s gaming market: Peter Czegledy

The first lesson in Ontario’s experience is the significant “commitment, cost, and effort” required to implement a new igaming framework, says Czegledy. It required a “considered legal and policy grounding,” wide political and regulatory support, and extensive consultations. Government and stakeholders also had to design a standardized commercial arrangement, create and administrate new legal and regulatory standards, and assemble operation infrastructure, such as banking and insurance.

The second lesson, he says, is that any new legal or regulatory framework must be viewed as “adaptive and flexible.”

“While it was launched just over a year ago, the authorities have already begun to re-examine elements of the framework and its standards and to consider if they need adjustment, in both major and minor fashion,” says Czegledy. “Rather than showing failure, it is, in my view, an indication of their willingness to adapt to operational realities rather than rely on conceptional theory, the value of listening and responding to both industry and the public, and the recognition that the legal and regulatory framework can’t stand still any more than the underlying activity does.”

“Hopefully, other jurisdictions will both follow and take comfort in this mentality.”

The third lesson in Ontario’s experience, he says, is that an open, regulated online gaming market is achievable.