Although Canadian sports betting bill seemed to have a positive outcome few days ago, now we should face disappointing results. The proposed bill about the legal single-game sports betting in Canada didn’t get support from the senate. Actually, the Liberal Party voted it down so the introduced House of Commons Bill C-221 about the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act has failed.
As we detailed earlier the positive factors of the legal single-game sports betting in Canada, now we should forget every aspect of it, since there is no chance for reconsideration.
Despite being a supporter earlier, the Liberal Party has changed its opinion about the Bill C-221 and party member Sean Casey got the noble mission to communicate the decision.
The politician strengthened, the reason of their step-back was led by the government’s concerns regarding the integrity of sports in Canada. The government holds a view of legalizing single-event sports betting could increase the number of game fixing.
As they explained further the reasons of the opposed Canadian sports betting, they emphasized, Canada’s actual parley system of betting makes game fixing almost impossible. In order to achieve that, punters should rig multiple events and it’s hard to complete. On the contrary, single event sports betting would allow match fixing, because swindlers should fix only one event.
The last argument from Liberal side was the possible rise of gambling addictions. The politician considers single-event sports betting would lead to more gambling addiction, and people with lower income are more affected.
Strong Criticism from The Advocates of Canadian Sports Betting
Democratic Party member, Brian Masse the main supporter of the bill criticized and massively disagreed with the arguments of his opponent. He accused the Liberal Party with being hypocrite as they planned this response out. He added, the information they used to avoid the real answer was over 3 years old.
Furthermore, Masse detailed the current parlay system’s disadvantages which are no longer suitable for satisfying customer needs. He reminded of the major drawback, the current system forces people to gamble illegally and use offshore sites to do that.
So it seems the biggest concern in these kind of decisions are not the conservatives with their anti-gambling views, but the liberals, as Masse stated that “with the Liberals, you’ve just got to be prepared for them switching position”.