Finance committee  Thank you. Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear here today. The Canadian Gaming Association is a national trade industry association representing leading operators and suppliers in Canada's gaming industry. I had occasion to appear before the Senate's finance

Finance committee  In the VLT market that you mentioned, with gaming machines and licensed establishments in various provinces, there is a denomination limit and an ability to pay out because it is the bar owner, in many cases, who would be cashing out. You would take a ticket out of a machine, if

Finance committee  No, I wouldn't call the minister's comments wrong. I think we need to be clear on what is occurring in British Columbia. There is a layering effect going on. If there's an issue in B.C. casinos, it may be with proceeds of crime being used. As to the actual laundering of money to

Finance committee  The issue concerning what comes in is that people bring cash into the casinos; our patrons do. Some are very reputable people who like to play with cash and prefer doing so. What has gone on in many cases in British Columbia is that the issues have been reported and discussed pub

Finance committee  They do.

Finance committee  No, there have been no other jurisdictions that have had the same kind of report. The industry uses a risk-based approach and identifies risks in their business. By and large, the industry in Canada is a local's gaming business, meaning that the patrons come from the surrounding

Justice committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I want to thank the members of Parliament for your leadership over the past year. During these very difficult times, your efforts to support individuals and businesses are welcome and are t

Justice committee  There have been a great number of estimates about the size to which this market will grow. Deloitte recently released a report that said that within five years the sports gaming markets could see $28 billion in gross wagering annually. The impact, as previous witnesses Mr. Hanse

Justice committee  It's more of a concern now because it's not legalized and organized crime is using it quite regularly as a money-laundering tool. That's the reason for bringing it into a regulated environment. A lot of the recent discussions around the suggestion of money laundering in casinos

Justice committee  We have a very strong regulatory environment in Canada. For someone to participate in the gaming industry, they need to be licensed. They need to have ownership. To have certain key jobs in casinos, you're required to go through a very thorough background investigation. Not just

Justice committee  No I don't. I think we're one of the last countries in the world to consider actually moving in this direction. Regulated sports betting has been operating for dozens of decades in Europe. It's now in the United States and South America. We are one of the last countries to move

Justice committee  Yes, it would. It would come from repatriating some of that money from illegal sources. Sports wagering is growing in popularity because of technology. It has been on an upswing for a number of years, so yes, it would bring that money back into legal channels.

Justice committee  Match fixing does occur. Through regulated environments, you've been able to put eyes on sports. Every major professional league has monitoring activities where they use services in monitoring players. They prohibit players, coaches and officials from wagering. There are organ

Justice committee  Yes, and provincial gaming regulators are looking at this very seriously and enhancing those regulations, as I mentioned in my remarks. They'll look at requiring data-sharing information. They will look at prohibiting athletes, coaches and officials from betting on sports, but th

Justice committee  In this country, there's only been one attempt at match fixing that occurred, and that was through the previous Canadian soccer league, which is a very amateur-level league that, somehow, sports books in Europe thought was equivalent to the English premier league, which it wasn't