Ontario sports betting is officially live in Ontario, Canada. Pop the champagne.
Welcome to a new gambling adventure for our wagering friends in Canada and “Bienvenue” to the heavily French-speaking areas.
The journey beginning April 4 contains a joyous, seemingly-unlimited world of sports betting options from the comfort of one’s betting app or home computer. The new venture is a departure from the single app and limited offerings from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.
Now Canadians have multiple operators vying for their business in the country’s most populous province.
Besides the plethora of live sporting events, patrons can shop individual books for sign-up offers, promotions and odds boosts that reduce or eliminate the classic “vig,” the house edge that cuts into a bettor’s profit.
Canada sports betting welcome offers
Popular sites like BetMGM, BetRivers and PointsBet have sprawling betting pages, which can act like an office for players. Each site has different places to list bet boosts and offers, and players will quickly grasp them.
The sites want to entice customers in the manner of sign-up offers and promos. They often take the form of easy cash or site credits. Operators, and offers, vary. But there is no shortage of them on launch day and beyond.
Customers have quickly learned to wait for a welcome offer to join a book and then stockpile money or free bets across several of them. That’s an excellent entry point into the sports betting world.
Find the ones that fit your comfort zone. There are different advantages to each.
Tips for new Ontario online bettors
A word of caution.
Read the fine print so you know exactly what you have to do to clear the offer.
Look for promos every day.
It can be a free bet connected to the betting of a three-legged parlay, a profit boost or parlay insurance. Just be sure you wanted to play the parlay in the first place.
Look for odds boosts.
A team can be “boosted” from +250 to +350 for an event. That means in the original bet, a gambler would profit $250 for every $100 wagered if the bet is successful. With the boost, that becomes $350 for $100 wagered.
And look for futures bets.
Some sites list them separately; others contain them within the page of an individual sport.
Futures bets offer a good value on a team to win a championship in the months ahead. Popular futures are Super Bowl or World Series winner, for example.
Hockey betting? In Canada? You betcha!
But Canadian gamblers have a deadline for one of their favorite passions: hockey. Books expect to do very well with NHL betting in Canada.
At last count at BetRivers in Pennsylvania, the Calgary Flames were +750 to win the Stanley Cup.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs were +1400
- The Edmonton Oilers were +2500
- The Winnipeg Jets are +7500.
These odds will begin to shift downward as the regular season winds down. Gamblers can also wager on individual games, player and team props.
Casino play also is popular.
Gamblers will see generous welcome offers applying to certain casino games just as if these were sporting events.
Know your limits, keep your betting safe
A final tip: Know your limits and play responsibly.
There is no need to rush in and bet over your head. The books will always be there tomorrow.
In the US, operators are required to give players the options to set limits right on the site or app. Ontario betting apps offer the same responsible gambling tools.
So good luck, and keep it safe.
Can gamblers expect a lot of fun with this?
“Oui!!”
