I couldn't find any threads on this topic in 2+2, so thought I'd share this information.

Brief background information to put things into perspective for non-Ontarian:

I am a daily listener of Bob McCowan's Primetime Sports, a daily 3 hour radio show that has various guests from different sports. On Tuesday, one of the guests was Paul Godfrey, the chairman of the OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation), a crown corporation that currently owns all the casino rights.

On Monday, the OLG recommended putting a casino in Toronto to help pay for the taxes and McCowan had him on the show to discuss the casino issue in particular.

Near the end of the segment, McCowan brings up the issue of legalizing online poker and Godfrey's response is:

This is well underway, there have been a RFP (request for proposal) already in processe, we announced this a year ago. We will be having another RFP (request for proposal?) for the specific games later in the year.

For those that want to listen, you have to download a 20 MB mp3. The interview with Godfrey starts at the 21:00 mark. The online poker question starts at 33:00 mark.
Link:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fan59...03-13-5-pm.mp3

So my question is, what will be the consequences of Ontario legalizing online poker? Will this be a similar case to Italy/France where we cannot play on Pokerstars.com, or will everything remain the same?

I'm not sure what you mean by legalizing online poker - is there a special law in Ontario? I've never heard of online poker being illegal in Canada.

If he's talking about the government finally getting in the game as they did some time ago in Quebec and here in BC, that didn't have any impact on our ability to play elsewhere online. Well, aside from the fact that we could no longer play on Entraction (or was it Boss?), who are providing the software.

Godfrey sounds like he was speaking of OLG-backed software, not legislation.

Until I hear differently, I don't have any reason to think it won't be similar to BC, which has their own online poker site but no law against playing at offshore sites.

Correct, there is no law prohibiting online gambling in Ontario. The interview mentioned that 400-500 mill were going to off-shore sites and the provincial government basically wanted a piece of this action.

On the brick-and- mortar side, Ontario seems to moving to privatization, so for online you have to wonder if they plan to open a state-run poker site like in Quebec and British Columbia, or license private companies as in France and Italy.

Well then yea, I know some of you guys in Ontario aren't aware there is anything beyond your own borders , but this has been available in BC and Quebec for several months now, and changed nothing.

B&M takes a lot more capital than online poker, especially when you consider that they could just piggyback off what other provinces have set up - don't see any reason they'd give up a piece of the pie on this.

Nowadays, about half of my play is on is on the QC/BC network, so for self-serving reasons I hope you're right. The player pool could definitely use the influx.

However, I don't see how authorizing private operators causes governments to give up their piece of the pie. In France, they charge licensing fees and take 2% of every pot, even when there's no flop. In return, they provide few services to the players.

In Quebec and BC, they rake 5%, but have to license the software, etc.

The private operator has to turn a profit, so that's money the government is losing out on.

Our government, not unlike any other government I have read about, is so inefficient and ineffective that without a doubt if it were to do it alone it would lose money. I totally agree with getting private sector involvement. At least that way the tax payers have a chance of getting a percentage of profits (tax revenue) versus the privilege of paying the inevitable cost overruns.

Booooooom

Does anyone here know how the BC site is doing? Is there decent traffic?

I assume provincially run sites will not fare very well in the open market.

from playnow website:

"535
active Poker players right now!"

Well, actually the Criminal Code of Canada makes it illegal to operate an online gambling site in Canada without a provincial license (or possibly a First Nations Treaty exemption). It might also be illegal to be "found in" (presumably includes "play at") an unlicensed and non-exempt online gambling site hosted in Canada. Canada's treatment of presumed venue of internet business seems to not make it illegal to play at a site operated outside of Canada.

LOL

What bull**** right-wing propaganda is this? Do you have any facts to back this up? No, of course you don't. Most of the Ontario budget goes to health care and education and there is all sorts of data that shows that the govenrment provides these at a lower cost per outcome than private industry can.

This is an obvious level but I almost fell for it. wp.

Not a level. Study after study in North America shows that private education is less effective (on a dollar cost basis) that the public system for educating identical cohorts. Canada's public heath care system costs signficantly less per capita than the US's mostly private system, but delivers better results in most key indicator health statistics (e.g. life expectancy, infant mortality). Go out and educate yourself by reading actual scientific studies, rather than the Toronto Sun.

People pretty much universally underestimate the Canadian political system. We honestly have very good civil servants, services and bureaucracies. Only problem is we have too many of them and are going broke

you must be american or not very bright.

The lottery commision would be tasked to run the site. Hopefully they would get on board with QC and BC

On-line poker is NOT illegal in Ontario.
The government WILL be getting into the on-line gaming business.
They will, EVENTUALLY, bar all off-shore competition.
The relevant quote from this week's presser is, "We will own the players . . ."

guess this is what we have to look forward to in the US sigh

thanks to quebec there will never be a nation wide site and thus all those micro sites will cost as much as they bring in income because they are runned by ******s.

interesting point, sir

Results of Quebec poker:

A couple of years ago the OLG was developing an online poker site. I posted a link to it somewhere in these forums, but am too lazy to search for the link, and have not heard anything about it since.

The site would have been run by the OLG with a rake of 13% to match the Canadian HST. OLG was also in talks with the Premiere to introduce a bill that would force the ISPs to block access to any online poker site operating outside of Ontario.