While it faces opponents in the parliamentary calendar and the Senate itself, legislation to make it legal to place bets on single sporting events will take another step toward the finish line this Wednesday.
The first of at least two expected Senate committee meetings on Bill C-218 will be held that evening.
C-218 was first tabled in the House of Commons in February 2020. It would allow people in Canada to legally place bets on single sports outcomes, such as an individual NHL game, or a lone boxing match. Sports betting is already legal in Canada, but it must be done in parlays, which are when multiple outcomes are paired together. All have to hit correctly for the bet to be won.
C-218’s changes would bring Canada more in line with nearly two dozen U.S. states, which loosened restrictions on sports betting after a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a 1992 ban that made betting on sports illegal in most states.
Sports betting of the kind Bill C-218 seeks to legalize is already big business in Canada. The Canadian Gaming Association estimates that $15 billion was bet on sports in 2020, but just three per cent of it (worth $450 million) was done legally.
C-218’s passage was delayed by infrequent sittings necessitated by the pandemic and the prorogation of Parliament, before moving quickly through the House this spring. It also came close to receiving unanimous support from MPs: In the only recorded vote in the House, the bill passed with 303 votes for and just 15 against.
It reached the Senate on April 30, and passed its second reading, It was then sent to the Banking committee last Tuesday. The committee is expected to hear from some of the same witnesses whom the House Justice committee invited for its study of the bill. Mostly sporting, gambling, and gaming organizations were part of the Justice committee’s study.
With both chambers of Parliament scheduled to wrap up their spring sittings in mid-June, any delays at this point of the committee’s study, or the ensuing third reading — where senators have their last chance to debate C-218 or offer amendments to it — could push its possible passage to the fall. That could jeopardize its progress entirely, given the possibility of a fall election. The Liberal government has already lasted about the average lifespan for a minority government in Canada. Furthermore, while all parties have said a federal election shouldn’t be held until the pandemic is over, all Canadians who plan to get vaccinated should be, by the time Parliament sits again in September.
If C-218 is amended by the Senate, it would have to be sent back to the House for reconsideration, and likely wouldn’t have time to pass this spring.
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Sen. Vernon White, a longtime police chief and former Conservative who now sits as a member of the Canadian Senators Group, is the driving force behind one amendment.
He wants the bill to address match-fixing.
“In Canada today, it is not illegal to fix a match,” White said during the Senate’s second-reading debate of the bill. “This must be corrected when this legislation is passed. … It is essential that, when we change the Criminal Code to allow single-event betting, we must ensure that the criminal concern of match-fixing be added to those same sections of the Criminal Code.”
Speaking to iPolitics on Monday, White, who isn’t a member of the Banking committee, said he was trying to find a senator on the committee who would put forward his amendment for him. If the amendment doesn’t pass there, White plans to offer it at third reading.
When asked about White’s concerns, Conservative Sen. David Wells — the Senate sponsor of the bill who took over responsibility for its passage from Conservative MP Kevin Waugh — said on Monday he feels the Criminal Code’s existing fraud laws would cover instances of match-fixing.
He also stressed the need for the bill to progress quickly, if it’s going to pass.
“The clock is not kind, especially in June,” Wells said.
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