Ontario Sports Betting Sites: Best Legal Sports Books for 2023

What is up! NeighborMike here, you’re favorite sports handicapper, low states DFS master, freelance writer, and overall decent person, back at it again with another smoking hot article! This time we’re covering the best sports betting sites in the wonderful providence of Ontario. 

Sports Betting In Ontario: Information for players

What a relief for Canadians no longer being restricted to only betting parlays, I can image that’s really weird and pretty frustrating especially when you have that one play you would mortgage the house on, but you have to attach it to something else to make a parlay, just to watch that extra leg wash away your for sure money. Sad times for sure. But those days are gone. Single bet gambling is a legal thing to areas of Canada. In this article were going to look at how it became legal, and now that it is legal, what are some of the best books and apps to use.

Online Sportsbook In Ontario 

So what’s the deal with online sports books and why are they so popular? For years, especially before sports betting became legal, if you wanted to make a bet you would have to go to a brick and mortar casino to do so. It made things pretty difficult. Especially if you were the type of person who likes betting on sports like baseball, hockey, and basketball. It’s quite a task to have to hit the casino everyday to drop off your money, even more of a task if you actually won, cause then you have to go pick up your money. It was quite the inconvenience for anyone who wasn’t only played NFL games on Sunday pretty much. 

Pretty much the only upside to it taking so long for gambling to become legal, is that technology is such a prevalent part in our day to day lives. That gambling is now accessible from the palm of our hands. Like most everything else gambling can be done on the phone making things much much easier to do, especially if you want to tackle that 84 game NHL regular season (which I know my Canadian people do). While some apps vary in quality pretty much all of them have a ton of betting markets and a ton of options.

Online gambling, especially spots books available through apps on the phone, is incredibly popular. Consider a few years ago gambling went legal in Louisiana, however mobile gambling would be a few months off. Once mobile gaming became a thing, the Barstool sports book for example lost 80% of its foot traffic in favor of betting online using the phone. 

Legal Framework for Sports Betting in Ontario 

So how did Ontario get so lucky and get legalized single game sports betting finally? Its almost easier to write about how hard various governments have tried to keep gambling out of Canada. You can look back as early as 1380 when the King during that time period banned dice games (some one must have been bucking five duce four tre and took him for everything he was worth).

It would take all the way up until 1767 for organized horse racing to become legal, but it would be a little over a hundred years later that all forms of gambling would be officially banned in 1892. Apparently at the time mortality and religious views were the hot topic at the time, and gambling certainly wasn’t part of that wave. 

But of course overtime, the desire for the almighty dollar would continue to supersede most anything. In 1900 the government started making amendments to the laws, first allowing bingo for charity purposes only. In 1925 another amendment would be made allowing fairs and town exhibitions to host gambling events as most at the time acknowledged that gambling was a form of “entertainment”.

The 60’s 70’s and 80’s would be huge in the movement toward legalized gambling and away from the time of banned dice games. In fairly quick succession a number of amendments would be made in 69’ 70’ and 74’. 

69’ would see lotteries become legal as the government realizes the “potential” of lotteries. It wouldn’t be long after that governments all across Canada would start using lotteries as a way to fund various projects. 

70’ would be a major turning point for the quest for legal gambling, at this point the Canadian government had made so many amendments and had pretty much at this point turned a blind eye to illegal gambling in general, they made the decision to let future of gambling be decide on a providence by providence basis. 

85’ would be the biggest turning point of all, gambling across Canada would become legal, well kinda. Gambling would technically become legal, however only for parlays. Yes, you read that right, at this time you could only make parlay bets, single bet wagers would become a thing until the “official” legalization in 2021. 

89’ would bring Canada its first brick and mortar casino, this would be a place called Crystal Casino and it would be located in Winnipeg. 

In 1994 we would see the last amendment to any gambling laws we would see in quite some time for Canada. In 94’ Canadians would be allowed to play online casino games. 

The Mother Of All Amendments 

For years most Canadian's would operate in sort of a grey area when it came to sports betting. From a legal standpoint, they could technically bet on parlays and single game betting was still illegal. However many Canadians at this point would be using offshore books to do their gambling because there was no law in place to make offshore betting punishable. Was offshore betting legal? No, but there was no law in place to stop anyone from doing it.

It would take almost 20 years, but finally on August of 2021 sports betting would become legal, with a catch. Each providence would still have the choice to decide if they wanted to allow gambling to be legal within it. And that’s where a strange twist came about. 

For whatever reason the northern region of Canada decided not to fully legalize single bet gambling, still no law would exist to stop them from using offshore books, but it would not be fully legalized. What they would allow would be Daily Fantasy Sports. 

The other side of this twist, is that the south providences of Canada did decide to allow single bet gambling to become legal in its providences, however they do not allow Daily Fantasy Sports. 

Top Sports Betting Sites In Ontario

Now were going to go over the top 5 betting sites in legal betting area providences of Canada. We going to include Bet365 in the list as well, because although its not technically a legal site, as we’ve covered in this article and previous articles covering Canadian betting, because Canada has been able to operate using offshore books without legal recourse, it still remains very very popular to the Canadian betters. 

BetMGM

1. Registration: BetMGM has a fairly simple and responsive registration system. Much like any other site all you need to do is sign up with your proper documentation and within 24 hours you should gain approve to the site and app. You also have the option of using you Yahoo information to log into the site if you don’t want to fill out all the registration info  for BetMGM.
2. Deposit Options: There are a good amount options, most being standard to legal betting sites. They offer Visa, Discover, you can use your online banking info, you have the option for PayPal, PayNearMe and Play+. There are a few other options as well.
3. Payouts: Currently BetMGM allows withdrawal through bank transfer. Typical return time is 2-4 days. 
4. Security: There isn’t much more you can ask for when it comes to security. 
5. Mobile App: Currently they do offer an app, however its not the greatest around, its a little clunky and has some crashing issues, especially on older iPhones.
6. Customer Support: Customer support can be a task. First its important to make sure you’re in contact with the proper customer service support system to begin with, as each providence has a dedicated system. The response time can take a while unless you use the chatting service, it may still take a while however its the most responsive of all the options.

Caesars

1. Registration: Registration is simple and easy. Response time is good as well. 
2. Deposit Options: They allow banking deposits from all major banks. Deposits from all major debit and credit cards, PayPal and ACH e-Check. They offer PayPal and Play+, you can also make cash deposits if there is a Caesars in your area. 
3. Payouts: The majority of options that are allowed for depositing are also allowed for doing withdrawals. It generally takes 1-2 days. 
4. Security: Security has been top notch. Recently there was a hack that affected most major books in America, since then most major books have become tight like Fort Knox. 
5.  Mobile App: The app for the most part works fairly well and is easy to navigate and understand. Does have cashing issues on older iPhones. 
6. Customer Service: Customer service is a strong point. Regardless of what method you use they are fairly easy to use and responsive. 

DraftKings

1. Registration: Everything is simple and easy to use, take less then 24 hours from start to finish to get playing.
2. Deposit Options: You can use pretty much any major bank for deposit. They accept wire transfers and e-checks. PayPal and Play+ are options. They accept cash at hub locations and they have gift cards you can buy. Just recently they added Venmo as an option also.
3. Payouts: All the options they use for deposit can also be used for withdrawals. Some options such as direct bank transfer and Venmo can take less then 30 minutes to an hour for you to receive you money. You can also decide to receive a check but that may take up to 2 weeks to get. 
4. Security: Much like most apps that were recently affected by the hack in North America, DraftKings has become ultra tight, they also prefer a very strong 2-factor notification system now. 
5. Mobile App: The app works great, rarely has any issues regardless of what iPhone or Android you are using. Also very easy to navigate and runs very smoothly 
6. Customer Service: Probably the most responsive and friendly of any of the options available They also have a tier system that offers you better customer service as you advance through it. Even without the advanced tier status the service is still very responsive 

Bet365

1. Registration: Considering its an offshore book they very rarely have any problems and the response time is generally always good. 
2. Deposit Options: They basically every option that the legal books do short of Venmo and Play+. They accept most major credit cards and allow bank and wire transfers.
3. Payouts: Payouts are done between 1-3 days. The deposit options are the same options they use for withdrawal. They also allow you to use PayPal as well.
4. Security: Considering this is an “offshore” book It really has no issues. Ultimately the term offshore brings up thoughts of a shady group running in a 3rd world country, but that’s not really the case here. Bet365 is a large book that has been running primarily in Europe for quite some time and overall has a very good reputation.
5. Mobile App: It might not be the prettiest thing to look at but Bet365 has an app that works very well on both iOS and Android. 
6. Customer Service: Again, Bet365 regardless of being an “offshore” book (at least to northern Canadians) has the big box feel every other book has. Even when it comes to customer service. It may even do a little better job now considering they know they’re competing with legal books for their business now. 

FanDuel

1. Registration: Similar to most of the better books signing up with FanDuel is a very painless process.
2. Deposit Options: Making a deposit is also easy. They have all the online banking direct deposit options. Visa and Mastercard both credit and debit card are viable, PayPal also is an option. Wire transfers are a go, and if you can find one FanDuel also has girt cards to give you favorite degenerate as a stocking stuffer on Christmas. Venmo recently became and option too.
3. Payouts: Fanduel has probably the quickest payouts of any book available right now. After you first deposit using Venmo any withdrawal after that often comes in minutes. 
4. Security: The security is great, they stress a very safe 2 factor notification method which is rock solid.
5. Mobile App: The app is very good, easy on the eyes runs smooth and makes things simple to find for you.
6. Customer Service: Customer service is great with them as well. The chat service can get bogged down a little bit but when they do respond they for sure do what they can to help you and work in your favor 

How To Start Betting Online

Now that we’ve made it through that we are ready to get started gambling, What do we do? First things first, what you’re going to want to do is research into each book in terms of knowing if they offer the sports you want, and if they do have the sports you want do they have the betting markets available. 

After we have looked into what book we want to use, you can either go to the site and find a link to download the app, or generally if you visit either the Apple or Android respective app store you will be able to find an app under the same name as the sports book you’ve decided to use. 

Sports Betting Tips 

Here are a few things I wish I knew before I started gambling that would have helped me beyond belief had I been aware they were things prior to my first deposit.

1. Bankroll Management: For me this is the absolutely one of the most important things to know before you start. A generally starting place is not risking anymore then 2.5% of whatever it is you deposited. Gambling has many ups and down and you want to prepare for that by reducing your risk of ruin when you lose bets.
2. Don’t Chase: Lost a bet? Let it go! Trying to make up for a lost bet by chasing is generally an emotionally driven activity and not a decision made with he best logic. Sports betting is hard enough as it is, don’t let you emotions get in the way of making good decisions. 
3. Set Limits: There’s some song I can’t recall the name of, but the key line is, “you gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em.” Set a limit for yourself when gambling. Its ok to stop when you’ve won a good amount, and not only is it ok, but its smart to stop when you’re down a certain amount as well. 

Sports Betting Strategies 

Yet another brief list of some things I absolutely wish I knew before I made my first bet. If I know any of these things it might not have taken me 20 years to become profitable.

1. Pick One Thing: Pick one betting market and stick to it. If you like totals for example just bet totals. Sports betting is hard enough as it is, being a profitable gambler takes a ton of time and energy. Help yourself out by reducing the amount of work you have to do. 
2. Don’t Play Every Sport: Similar to only betting one market, you do this to keep the amount of work you have to do for yourself down. How can you expect to come up with a few good plays. Going through information when there’s 3 of 4 major sports going on at a time. Sometimes that can be close to 50 games and that’s an insane amount information to have to process. 
3. Don’t Bet On Your Favorite Teams: Often we think we know more then everyone else because we have a better grasp on the teams we follow., More often then not that not true, and we make decisions because on emotion which isn’t something we want to do when sports betting. 

Types of Bets You Can Make at Online Ontario Betting Sites

Luckily Canadians are no longer restricted only betting parlays and with those handcuffs being removed they now have access to a world of other betting options for their favorite sports. 

Thankfully things aren’t too confusing when it comes to what exactly to bet on. MLB, NHL, NFL and soccer pretty much have all the same options

1. Spread: Although it has a few different names (puck line, run line, or just spread in general) it all means the same thing. The amount of points a team will win or lose by.
2. Moneyline: Moneyline is a straight bet on if a team will win or lose
3. Total: The amount of points a team will score. This can broken down into full game, quarters, halves, or periods. 
4. Prop Bets: Props are bets made on any number of wide ranging outliers situations going on within a game. It can be something as simple as will Conor McJesus score a goal tonight. Or will orange Gatorade be pored on the Super Bowl winning coach. 

Things can get a little different when it comes to combat sports. There are variety of bets that can be made specifically having to do with combat sports.

1. Over and Under: How long or how short do you think a fight will be
2. Outcomes: Wether or not you think someone will be knocked out or submitted 
3. Submissions: What type of submission do you think will win with. 
4. Knockdowns / Take downs: How many knock downs or take downs do you think willl occur during the fight
5. Strikes Landed: How many strikes do you think will be landed during a fight. 
6. Round Betting: Exactly what round will a fight end in. 

Other Types Of Gambling

Of Course we all know sports betting isn’t the online form of betting. Canadians have a few other options outside of sports betting when it comes to decision what game of chance they would like to spend their hard earned money on.

1. Casino: Available both online and through brick and mortar locations. Casino gambling is an option pretty much every game you may want to play is available within a drive or at the palm of your hands
2. Horse Racing: Who doesn’t love betting on the Ponies? Easily one of the most exciting type bets you could ever make. Especially if you’re in person.
3. Daily Fantasy Sports: Although only viable in the northern regions of Canada, DFS is a ton of fun. Why get stuck with the team you drafted 10 weeks ago when you can make a new team everyday with a shot of winning money also on a daily basis.

Conclusion 

Sports betting is here to stay (hopefully) and as long as its done responsibly it can be a ton of fun. Many people do it for a hobby just to pass the time, others have dreams of hitting the pro ranks and quitting that 9-5 grind, others just want to get a sweat going during their favorite sporting events. Whichever of these labels fits you the best, Canada has all the best resources to have an amazing time doing whatever it is you decide to do.

Questions And Answers 

Is sports betting legal in Ontario?

Yes as of August 2021.

Where can you bet on sports in Ontario?

At your local brick and mortar casino, if your sports book has an app you may place bets online as well.

Is Bet365 legal in Ontario?

Technically it is an offshore book, however there are no laws that punish the use of these books. 

What betting sites are legal in Ontario?

Besides that listed in the article. BetVictor, SportsInterection, Pinnacle, PointsBet, UniBet, CoolBet, just to name a few,

Is mobile gambling legal in Ontario?

Yes it is currently legal there.

Who Regulates Sports Betting in Ontario?

The Alcohol And Gaming Commission Of Ontario.