Catharines, Ont., MP Chris Bittle, who attended the event. 'Canadians have been betting on sports for a long time, but there's been a relic in the Criminal Code that has prevented betting on individual events,' said St.
The new rules have the potential to bring that money back into Canada in a way that it can be monitored and taxed. An additional $4 billion a year gets spent by Canadians in the so-called grey market, in offshore jurisdictions where such bets are legal. 'Canadians will have the opportunity to participate in single-event sport betting in a regulated and safe environment, at the discretion of the provinces and territories,' Attorney General David Lametti told a news conference in Niagara Falls, Ont., on Thursday.Īccording to the federal government, Canadians spend about $10 billion a year on single sporting events as part of betting conducted illegally in the black market by organized criminal networks. 27 - merely allows provinces to regulate sports betting as they see fit. The news doesn't open up the floodgates, however: The federal law - which will be in force as of Aug. The federal government has made it legal to gamble on individual sporting events, bringing legitimacy to a murky industry on which Canadians already spend billions of dollars a year.
