The National Hockey League (NHL) in Canada has announced that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) will serve as its official sports betting partner.
The NHL said Wednesday that this agreement is its first partnership with a sports betting operator in Canada. The multi-year contract covers all of Ontario and includes the PROLINE+ gaming platform and the PROLINE retail shop solution offered by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.
The arrangement gives OLG the only right to utilize the NHL’s official logos and colors in all of its gaming promotions and incentives. PROLINE+ will be the NHL’s presenting sponsor for the pregame festivities at the Heritage Classic outdoor event.
The OLG’s Chief Digital and Strategy Officer, Dave Pridmore, is optimistic about the cooperation, saying that the length of the arrangement would allow both companies to invest in research and development that will eventually benefit sports bettors and fans.
The NHL’s interest in forming a collaboration with the OLG presents a significant potential for the OLG to broaden its hockey and sports offerings. A similar arrangement was inked by the company with the National Football League only a few weeks ago, greatly expanding the range of sports on which it may provide wagers.
Pridmore speculated that the deal will open up a plethora of new online gambling opportunities for hockey enthusiasts in Ontario. He said that PROLINE would allow bets on things like which team would score first, when that would happen in the game, how many goals each side would score, and so on.
“I think having the generic win-lose bet can sometimes be a little bit too straightforward,” Pridmore said. “If your team is losing by a large margin, you might as well have a bet on the score at the third period only because it kind of takes the fun out of the game right away if you know that your team has lost that game already.”
Senior VP of North American commercial development for the National Hockey League Kyle McCann recently thanked the Ontario Gaming Commission for their support of the NHL in the province. He boasted that the company’s forty years in the industry have resulted in a stellar reputation for responsible gaming in Canada. The NHL has found a great ally in it as it pursues further growth in the Canadian market.
The OLG has also just released a betting series called OLGGamePlan, which was created in collaboration with Twitter. The operator is taking these steps in the aim of keeping their audience abreast of developments in the gaming business.