Manitoba Online Gambling Numbers Below Target

Manitoba is one of the few provinces in Canada that offers some sort of online gambling products. These are channelled through the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries. A report released after 18 months of operations revealed that the income generation from online gambling was below target.

The online gambling is conducted through the Playnow.com web site. In the first complete financial year of operations, the total amount wagered at Playnow.com was just under $6 million dollars. The British Columbia Lotteries Corporation, which operates the web site, expects the betting revenue to go up to $10 million in this fiscal year. The estimate is based on the increasing number of Canadians registering with Playnow.com. The site went live with about 4,000 accounts. Within six months the number had increased to 9,000. In September 2014, there were more than $13,000 active accounts. The report also revealed information about the net income from Playnow.com. For the 2013-14 fiscal year this was about $300,000. The Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries expects this figure to be around $1 million for the fiscal year 2014-15.

The product range has also widened over the months. Playnow.com started with only e-lottery tickets. The sales were not uniform, because they depended on the amount of the jackpot. Therefore to keep the revenue consistent the online gambling web site had to add a number of other products. Now the line-up includes mobile apps for smartphones and tablets, e-bingo and other e-lottery games. Since many of these additions were recent, their actual impact is not known and the projections for the current year cannot be made with certainty. However, Canada online gambling experts agree that new products will only increase the amount of money being wagered.

Despite the optimism for the future, comparison with initial estimates presents a dismal picture. When the site launched, government officials predicted a profit of $1.5 million during the online gambling site’s first year. The actual net revenue of only $300,000 is too far short of that goal. This has made many Canadians from Manitoba sceptical about the provincial government’s goal of $17 million in profits by 2018. However, the government does not appear to be worried. The total revenue generated by lotteries in Manitoba was more than $604 million dollars last year. Therefore the shortfall in online gambling revenues will not alter the bigger picture. The objective of launching online gambling in Manitoba was to mop up a section of the $37 million spent at offshore unregulated sites.

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