There is a major change this year to how online betting on the Kentucky Derby will work in Canada’s most populous province.
While horseplayers in Ontario have and will still be able to legally place pari-mutuel wagers on the “Run for the Roses” via Woodbine Entertainment Group's HPIbet and Dark Horse Bets, they can also use bet365 for the first time since the bookmaker became provincially regulated.
That's because one thing that happened between the 149th Derby in May 2023 and the 150th Derby this weekend is a partnership was formed between bet365 and Woodbine that allows the former to offer wagering on horse racing that is processed by the latter.
This means bet365 users in Ontario can log onto the operator’s app or site on Saturday and find the Derby Day races at Churchill Downs. No other operator in Ontario's competitive iGaming market can do the same, at least not at this point.
Users will also see on the app or site that while these markets may appear on bet365, they are operated by Toronto-based Woodbine Entertainment, as the company is the only holder of a federal pari-mutuel betting license in Ontario. Offering fixed-odds wagering on horse racing remains illegal in Canada.
"It's been less than a year since horse racing was integrated into the bet365 Ontario app and we have seen continued growth in both new customers and betting handle, which is encouraging," said David Vivenes, executive vice president of brand and experience for Woodbine Entertainment, in a press release. "Now with the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, we have our biggest single day opportunity to further engage with sports bettors and grow."
Horse racing is once again up and running on bet365 in Ontario. But there's a note that it's "Operated by Woodbine Entertainment Group." That's because Woodbine is the only entity in Ontario with a pari-mutuel wagering license and is really the one processing the action. pic.twitter.com/lhmJ81J65I
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) August 17, 2023
Adding horse racing to a betting app seems like such a small and natural thing, but the recent changes to legal sports betting in Canada made it much more complicated. Indeed, the launch of a competitive market for internet casino gambling and online sports betting in Ontario in 2022 has led to an explosion in choice for provincial punters, but it also had some side effects, one of which concerned horse racing.
Ontario long had a robust “grey” market for online sports betting, wherein residents could access offshore and out-of-province sites that also offered horse racing. When those operators joined Ontario’s regulated market, they dropped horse racing from their sites in the province to comply with Canadian law.
That left longtime users of those sites wondering where horse racing went, especially around the Kentucky Derby, arguably the biggest race of the year. Ontario-regulated online sportsbooks were unable to take action on the Derby over the past two years, leading to a fair amount of irritation, even with Woodbine’s sites still open for business.
We're so back
Now, though, Ontario sports bettors who want to dabble in horse racing have bet365 available to them again as well.
Although horse racing isn’t quite the draw for bettors as it is overseas, North American bookmakers have increasingly embraced it as another way to draw in customers and keep them wagering. Similar to its Woodbine deal, bet365 recently struck a partnership in the U.S. with the Stronach Group’s 1/ST Technology to provide horse racing.
Timing is everything, however. And a well-known event like the Kentucky Derby is arguably the biggest day of the year for that horse racing-related engagement.
Woodbine, meanwhile, is eyeing partnerships with sportsbook operators such as bet365 to attract new fans and bettors to the sport
“Over the longer term, we see an unprecedented opportunity to engage this audience, acquire new customers, and drive handle that will increase our overall wagering revenue to support and grow horse racing and the nearly 25,000 jobs it supports here,” Vivenes said in the release.
