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The Rising Trend of Online Gambling in Canada and Its Future

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Regulation of Online Gambling in Ontario: The Fight Against Black-Market Operators Continues

Gambling has always been a big hit in Canada. But, the rise of online casinos in the past decade did a great job for the audience to make a switch. It’s not like land-based casinos aren’t popular anymore. But, online casino sites offer a much better gaming experience, focused on rewarding bonuses and exciting games.

According to latest data, the Canadian online gambling industry has grown tremendously in the past year. The total gambling revenue has grown to over $3 billion. This industry is moving forward in strides, keeping the economy up with many jobs and contributing to the country’s GDP. The rising trend of online casinos in Canada continues to march forward, and in this guide, we’ll talk more about the reasons behind it and where it’s headed.

What Fuels the Online Gambling Boom in Canada?

There are several factors which fuel the online gambling boom in Canada. It’s not just the money. Things such as enhanced security, increased Internet coverage, widespread mobile usage, and innovative marketing have done a great job. The latter is one of the key aspects. A player needs to visit sites such as ComeOn.com to get a whiff of what we’re saying. The casino uses marketing as a powerful tool to appeal to a wide audience. We’re talking great bonuses as well as a game library that follows the latest trends of incorporating pop-culture themes.

Franchises such as Star Wars or The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones aren’t exclusive to TV anymore. Regular merch such as shirts, pins, and even board games still exists. However, these pop-culture phenoms—and many others—have found a great new outlet in the online gambling industry. Slot games can be wrapped around any idea and theme. They’re a perfect vessel for beloved franchises and characters.

You can bet that the industry uses them to its advantage. Every casino wants a slice of the younger population. Young people are glued to their seats watching the latest Marvel/DC shows and movies. Whenever there’s a new Star Wars movie around the corner, the hype is unreal. Merchandise has always been a driving force in the popularity of such franchises, and now, so is the slot industry.

The fusion of entertainment and gambling and the lucrative offers is simply too good for players to ignore. Bonuses and promotions are always displayed on large banners and with bombastic headlines that makes some players sign up without even looking. Of course, that’s not a smart thing to do, but hey, it works for the gambling industry, and it’s not against the law.

Gambling Demographics and Statistics

According to stats, around 65% of Canadians aged 15+ gamble at least once per year. Males are dominant in this category, with the demographics showing that the most common age group is 45-64. The most popular games were lotteries and bingo. However, the rise of online gambling, especially in the past few years, has lifted online slots and casino games to a much higher spot than ever before.

Slots lead this list of most popular games as expected. They come in many formats, and offer incredible rewards. They’re also easy to play. New players don’t need any particular skills like they do at blackjack tables. Slots are fun and very easy to play, and the mechanics are as simple as it gets. Choose a bet, hit the Spin button, and wait for the outcome.

A big plus for their popularity is that they come for free. You can try any slot you want without paying a cent for it. It’s always best to try something for free before you use your money. You get to check out the slot’s features and see how often it pays before you can splash the cash. That’s also the case with RNG table and card games. It means that you can practice for free, which is invaluable for games such as poker or blackjack.

Back to the statistics. Latest reports say that online gambling generated $2.64 billion in 2021 during lockdowns. Nearly half of that came from online gambling. The projected revenue growth should reach $3.69 in 2023, with many experts optimistic that a late-year run can take that number to $4 billion. User penetration for the online gambling market in Canada is projected to go up to 51% by 2027, with a total of around 20 million users. By the same year, the projected revenue growth will be nearly 8%.

The industry is marching forward and showing no signs of stopping. Unless some legal restrictions come into play, legal casino games online in Canada will continue to be extremely popular.

What Does the Future Hold?

It’s a multi-billion business and these kinds of industries can withstand all kinds of blows. And there are no blows at the moment, so the online gambling industry in Canada will continue to thrive. It evolves right in line with new technologies. As technology moves forward, so will the casino industry. New payment options such as cryptocurrencies are emerging and are very interesting for players and casinos. Also, game development is also improving, and that means a better slate of games in the near future.

Technological achievements always play a big part in any industry’s success. That goes double for online gambling. Ever player live casino games? You should only take a look at those to see how far casino games have come.

Of course, the industry also pays attention to the prevention of problem gambling. For that purpose, it has designed responsible gambling initiatives that ensure you play responsibly. Things have been working great so far. Just around 2% of participants have problems with gambling, which shows the initiatives have had success. Each casino is obligated to have a responsible gambling page, and compared to the past, gambling problem awareness is much higher.

When it’s all said and done, Canada’s loose laws on online gambling are bringing it loads of cash. The online gambling industry’s future is bright and the country’s economy is better off because of it.

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Soccer legend Christine Sinclair says goodbye in Vancouver |

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Christine Sinclair scored one final goal at B.C. Place, helping the Portland Thorns to a 6-0 victory over the Whitecaps Girls Elite team. The soccer legend has announced she’ll retire from professional soccer at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season. (Oct. 16, 2024)

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A German in charge of England? Nationality matters less than it used to in international soccer

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The question was inevitable.

At his first news conference as England’s newly appointed head coach, Thomas Tuchel – a German – was asked on Wednesday what message he had for fans who would have preferred an Englishman in charge of their beloved national team.

“I’m sorry, I just have a German passport,” he said, laughing, and went on to profess his love for English football and the country itself. “I will do everything to show respect to this role and to this country.”

The soccer rivalry between England and Germany runs deep and it’s likely Tuchel’s passport will be used against him if he doesn’t deliver results for a nation that hasn’t lifted a men’s trophy since 1966. But his appointment as England’s third foreign coach shows that, increasingly, even the top countries in the sport are abandoning the long-held belief that the national team must be led by one of their own.

Four of the top nine teams in the FIFA world rankings now have foreign coaches. Even in Germany, a four-time World Cup winner which has never had a foreign coach, candidates such as Dutchman Louis van Gaal and Austrian Oliver Glasner were considered serious contenders for the top job before the country’s soccer federation last year settled on Julian Nagelsmann, who is German.

“The coaching methods are universal and there for everyone to apply,” said German soccer researcher and author Christoph Wagner, whose recent book “Crossing the Line?” historically addresses Anglo-German rivalry. “It’s more the personality that counts and not the nationality. You could be a great coach, and work with a group of players who aren’t perceptive enough to get your methods.”

Not everyone agrees.

English soccer author and journalist Jonathan Wilson said it was “an admission of failure” for a major soccer nation to have a coach from a different country.

“Personally, I think it should be the best of one country versus the best of another country, and that would probably extend to coaches as well as players,” said Wilson, whose books include “Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.”

“To say we can’t find anyone in our country who is good enough to coach our players,” he said, “I think there is something slightly embarrassing, slightly distasteful about that.”

That sentiment was echoed by British tabloid The Daily Mail, which reported on Tuchel’s appointment with the provocative headline “A Dark Day for England.”

While foreign coaches are often found in smaller countries and those further down the world rankings, they are still a rarity among the traditional powers of the game. Italy, another four-time world champion, has only had Italians in charge. All of Spain’s coaches in its modern-day history have been Spanish nationals. Five-time World Cup winner Brazil has had only Brazilians in charge since 1965, and two-time world champion France only Frenchmen since 1975.

And it remains the case that every World Cup-winning team, since the first tournament in 1930, has been coached by a native of that country. The situation is similar for the women’s World Cup, which has never been won by a team with a foreign coach, though Jill Ellis, who led the U.S. to two trophies, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in England.

Some coaches have made a career out of jumping from one national team to the next. Lars Lagerbäck, 76, coached his native Sweden between 2000-09 and went on to lead the national teams of Nigeria, Iceland and Norway.

“I couldn’t say I felt any big difference,” Lagerbäck told The Associated Press. “I felt they were my teams and the people’s teams.”

For Lagerbäck, the obvious disadvantages of coaching a foreign country were any language difficulties and having to adapt to a new culture, which he particularly felt during his brief time with Nigeria in 2010 when he led the African country at the World Cup.

Otherwise, he said, “it depends on the results” — and Lagerbäck is remembered with fondness in Iceland, especially, after leading the country to Euro 2016 for its first ever international tournament, where it knocked out England in the round of 16.

Lagerbäck pointed to the strong education and sheer number of coaches available in soccer powers like Spain and Italy to explain why they haven’t needed to turn to an overseas coach. At this year’s European Championship, five of the coaches were from Italy and the winning coach was Luis de la Fuente, who was promoted to Spain’s senior team after being in charge of the youth teams.

Portugal for the first time looked outside its own borders or Brazil, with which it has historical ties, when it appointed Spaniard Roberto Martinez as national team coach last year. Also last year, Brazil tried — and ultimately failed — to court Real Madrid’s Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti, with Brazilian soccer federation president Ednaldo Rodrigues saying: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a foreigner or a Brazilian, there’s no prejudice about the nationality.”

The United States has had a long list of foreign coaches before Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine former Chelsea manager who took over as the men’s head coach this year.

The English Football Association certainly had no qualms making Tuchel the national team’s third foreign-born coach, after Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-06) and Italian Fabio Capello (2008-12), simply believing he was the best available coach on the market.

Unlike Eriksson and Capello, Tuchel at least had previous experience of working in English soccer — he won the Champions League in an 18-month spell with Chelsea — and he also speaks better English.

That won’t satisfy all the nay-sayers, though.

“Hopefully I can convince them and show them and prove to them that I’m proud to be the English manager,” Tuchel said.

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AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this story.

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Maple Leafs winger Bobby McMann finding game after opening-night scratch

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TORONTO – Bobby McMann watched from the press box on opening night.

Just over a week later, the Maple Leafs winger took a twirl as the first star.

McMann went from healthy scratch to unlikely offensive focal point in just eight days, putting up two goals in Toronto’s 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.

The odd man out at the Bell Centre against the Montreal Canadiens, he’s slowly earning the trust of first-year head coach Craig Berube.

“There’s a lot of good players on this team,” McMann said of his reaction to sitting out Game 1. “Maybe some guys fit better in certain scenarios than others … just knowing that my opportunity would come.”

The Wainwright, Alta., product skated on the second line with William Nylander and Max Domi against Los Angeles, finishing with those two goals, three hits and a plus-3 rating in just over 14 minutes of work.

“He’s been unbelievable,” said Nylander, who’s tied with McMann for the team lead with three goals. “It’s great when a player like that comes in.”

The 28-year-old burst onto the scene last February when he went from projected scratch to hat-trick hero in a single day after then-captain John Tavares fell ill.

McMann would finish 2023-24 with 15 goals and 24 points in 56 games before a knee injury ruled him out of Toronto’s first-round playoff loss to the Boston Bruins.

“Any time you have success, it helps the confidence,” he said. “But I always trust the abilities and trust that they’re there whether things are going in or (I’m not) getting points. Just trying to play my game and trust that doing the little things right will pay off.”

McMann was among the Leafs’ best players against the Kings — and not just because of what he did on the scoresheet. The forward got into a scuffle with Phillip Danault in the second period before crushing Mikey Anderson with a clean hit in the third.

“He’s a power forward,” Berube said. “That’s how he should think the game, night in and night out, as being a power forward with his skating and his size. He doesn’t have to complicate the game.”

Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz knew nothing about McMann before joining Toronto in free agency over the summer.

“Great two-way player,” said the netminder. “Extremely physical and moves really well, has a good shot. He’s a key player for us in our depth. I was really happy for him to get those two goals.

“Works his butt off.”

ON TARGET

Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who scored 69 times last season, ripped his first goal of 2024-25 after going without a point through the first three games.

“It’s not going to go in every night,” said Matthews, who added two assists against the Kings. “It’s good to see one fall … a little bit of the weight lifted off your shoulders.”

WAKE-UP CALL

Berube was animated on the bench during a third-period timeout after the Kings cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-2.

“Taking care of the puck, being harder in our zone,” Matthews said of the message. “There were times in the game, early in the second, in the third period, where the momentum shifted and we needed to grab it back.”

PATCHES SITS

Toronto winger Max Pacioretty was a healthy scratch after dressing the first three games.

“There’s no message,” Berube said of the 35-year-old’s omission. “We have extra players and not everybody can play every night. That’s the bottom line. He’s been fine when he’s played, but I’ve got to make decisions as a coach, and I’m going to make those decisions — what I think is best for the team.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

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The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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