Manitoba reports on online gambling performance

The Canadian province of Manitoba has reported that the introduction of legalised online gambling in the province has not been as profitable as estimated.

The publication Canada.com reports that provincial government figures show that Manitoba made just $300,000 in the six month period ended September 2013, well short of estimates that revenues from the pastime would top $1.5 million in the first year of operations on the PlayNow website.

Andrea Kowal, a spokesperson for Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries, says the web site was launched a year ago and has been competing with many gambling websites around the world. She noted that plans to offer lottery tickets and bingo on the website when it launched had not yet materialised and were taking longer than expected to implement.

Earlier predictions that the province could reap $17 million a year by 2018 are still on-target, but revenue projections this year and next will have to be revisited, Kowal said, due to the longer ramp-up period.

Playnow.com currently generates about $30 million a year for the British Columbia provincial government, while Ontario is planning to start offering online gambling later this year.

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