When Ontario’s open, legal online gambling industry opened its doors in the spring of April 2022, folks around the business of sports wagering and igaming wondered how arrival of a highly competitive industry would impact the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation.

Well, as OLG leadership has acknowledged over the past three-plus years, the new kids on the block forced the corporation to get its act together when it came to digital gaming. That race to keep up with the Joneses resulted in a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats scenario. Some of the credit for the growth of OLG’s gaming products can be attributed to the hiring in June 2022 of long-time Canadian and global branding/marketing executive Maxine Chapman as OLG’s vice president, brand and marketing officer.

Chapman, who was honoured in February by Strategy Magazine as one of its Marketers of the Year, has deftly juggled OLG’s many brands and partnerships with advertising/marketing/PR agencies and organizations such as Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment around its Bring Home The Win masterbrand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7AWLDq57s

The career of the brand/marketing maven, which began at OLG in the early 1990s has included tenures with Coca-Cola, the Vancouver and London Olympics, Cineplex and Manulife. We talked all about those stops – and her work across sports, entertainment and gaming - as Chapman made her maiden appearance on the Gaming News Canada Show.

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In the spring of 2022, Chavdar Dimitrov left Bede Gaming after almost nine years to join forces with Justin Park and launch Betty. Some nine months later, Betty unveiled its product in Ontario’s regulated gambling marketplace.

Today, the company touts more than 39,000 customers and recently nailed down a $15 million credit facility to grow its business, including plans to launch in Alberta when the province is ready to raise the curtain on its open sports wagering and igaming industry.

Dimitrov joined us from his office in Sofia, Bulgaria for a new episode of the Gaming News Canada Show. In addition to sharing his story on his journey through the gaming industry and creating Betty with Park, Betty’s CEO also spoke about the company’s success in the highly-competitive Ontario industry, a customer base that is split evenly today between men and women, and Park’s recent comment about Betty becoming the “McDonald’s of icasino” with its plans to “transform Betty into a global powerhouse. . . through a decentralized franchise model”.

We also asked Dimitrov for his perspectives on addressing customers’ needs, what makes an engaging, successful product that is rewarded with loyal customers, and creating a positive work environment for employees in the post-pandemic world.

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It has been a fortnight and more since Paul Burns has been our guest on the Gaming News Canada Show. So given the various happenings around the Canadian gambling industry since his last appearance at the beginning of 2025, we asked Paul Burns to join us once again.

With apologies to the late James Stewart and Frank Capra, Mr. Burns went to Ottawa earlier this month for the Council of Europe Workshop on the Macolin Convention gathering, which included panel conversations featuring the CGA head honcho, Dave Phillips and Doug Hood from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and Sportradar’s integrity services lead Jim Brown weighing in on the province’s regulated sports betting industry’s work to combat match fixing. During our conversation, Burns told us that the collaboration between the AGCO, licensed sportsbooks, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders means “the regime is working”.

We also asked Burns for some thoughts and layers on three years of open, regulated sports wagering and igaming in Ontario and what's to come in Year 4, and the introduction of the iGaming Alberta Act by the ruling UCP party into the provincial legislature in the land of oil, gas and Connor McDavid. He also delivered an early look at what will take place during the June 17-19 Canadian Gaming Summit in the city below Caledon.

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