The big name in online sports betting in the USA has wasted no time at all in becoming the big name in sports betting in Ontario.

As we approach the one-month anniversary of the launch of legal and regulated sports betting in Ontario, FanDuel ON is making serious inroads into the market. In fact, the online sports betting site is making its claim to be one of the most popular apps in the Canadian market since the April 4 launch of legal sports betting.

According to data compiled by Apptopia.com, the FanDuel sports betting app owns a 71 percent share of all new downloads of sports betting apps in Ontario. Across the border in the US legal and regulated sports betting market, FanDuel is also No. 1 in the rankings for new downloads.

In 2021, FanDuel was the most downloaded sports betting app in the USA, grabbing a 34 percent share of all new betting app downloads. So far into 2022, that number is on the rise. FanDuel has grabbed 38 percent of the sports betting app downloads across the USA this year.

Still, those numbers pale in comparison to FanDuel’s Ontario dominance. However, there is a caveat worth noting, a factor that might make it worth placing an asterisk next to FanDuel’s Canadian numbers. FanDuel’s No. 1 competitor in the USA is DraftKings. DraftKings ON is still waiting to receive a license from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. Here is what we know about when DraftKings Ontario will launch.

In the USA, the DraftKings sports betting app accounted for a 29 percent share of the new app downloads in 2021. This year, that numbers sits at 23 percent of sports betting app downloads.

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Bet365, theScore Top Daily Users

Amazingly, FanDuel has made these massive inroads into Ontario without doing much in the way of advertising or promotion of the arrival of their site to the province. Meanwhile, online sports betting sites that saturated the market with advertising and promotional moves are finding it difficult to gain a foothold in Ontario.

But while FanDuel’s app is the most popular by far to download as we approach May 4, it isn’t the app that’s getting the most regular workout. According to data supplied by Wells Fargo and covering from Ontario’s April 4 launch through April 14, Canadian-owned theScoreBet and British sports betting giant bet365 ON maintain that honor. Each is showing 78,000 daily active users.

Betway comes in third at 43,000 DAU, followed by FanDuel (30,000).

Other sites that invested heavily in advertising prior to the Ontario launch are seeing their efforts pay dividends.

PointsBet ON went all-in when it came to advertising. They hired Canadian pop culture icons the Trailer Park Boys to partake in an immersive marketing campaign. PointsBet signed as an official sports betting partner of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as Curling Canada and the NHL Alumni. Despite all of these efforts, PointsBet had only been successful at gaining 5,000 daily active users of their sports betting app through April 14.

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Likewise, BetMGM ON brought on board NHL all-time scoring leader Wayne Gretzky and current NHL scoring leader Connor McDavid as brand ambassadors. Yet their app was showing 14,000 DAU through the first 10 days of sports betting going live in Ontario.

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Interestingly, Caesars ON is maintaining its US share averages in Ontario, even though much like FanDuel, the company didn’t do much to advertise their impending presence in the province’s sports betting market. Caesars showed an 8 percent share of the USA new download market last year. So far, they’re cornered an 8 percent share of the Ontario download market. Both Caesars and BetRivers were showing 3,000 DAU.

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Differing Fortunes For Grey Market Sites

Online sportsbooks that were operating in the so-called grey market of unregulated sports betting in Canada were required to shut down those operations on April 3, the day prior to the Ontario launch. They had to release their customers back into the wild, so to speak, and then launch as a new online sports betting site on April 4.

Betway, which held approximately 50 percent of the grey, unregulated market in Ontario, has maintained a solid 21 percent share in the licensed and regulated Ontario sports betting marketplace. That’s placing the Malta-based sports betting site second in Ontario behind FanDuel, with Caesars slotting into third place.

However, the transition isn’t going as well for Gibraltar-based 888Sport. Their piece of the marketplace was showing 5,000 DAU through April 14.

What’s Next For Ontario Sports Betting?

The biggest other shoe to drop in the Ontario online sports betting marketplace will be the launch of DraftKings in the province. In the USA, DraftKings hasn’t rushed to enter certain markets and yet still has been able to bite off a significant share of the marketplace.

Other than DraftKings not being present, Ontario’s lansdcape is already mimicking the USA marketplace in terms of the industry’s big-time players. FanDuel rules, with BetMGM and Caesars rounding out the top four and PointsBet and BetRivers trailing the field.

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