PlayFallsview is the first iGaming site in Ontario to grow out of one of the province’s brick-and-mortar gambling establishments, the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls.
The app enters the Ontario iGaming market with online casino gambling that includes live dealer products. PlayFallsview also consists of an online sportsbook.
iGaming Ontario (iGO) lauded PlayFallsview in two tweets today:
Congratulations from iGO to MGE Digital Canada Inc. (Mohegan Gaming) as the first Ontario land-based casino Operator joins the new internet gaming market in the province!
@playfallsview Online Casino is now live on desktop web browsers and mobile devices anywhere in Ontario at PlayFallsview.com.
[ Editor’s note: This is a slightly odd claim, as Caesars, which operates a casino in Windsor, was among the province’s first online operators. We’ve chosen our wording to reflect the fact that PlayFallsview is the first site connected to an Ontario-specific retail brand. ]
Uncasville, Conn.-based Mohegan operates Fallsview and Casino Niagara. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) governs the retail casinos.
A couple of rebrandings accompany the PlayFallsview announcement:
- The debut of the real-money gambling app means the social gaming app rebrands to FallsviewSocial.
- Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) became “Mohegan” on July 13.
The Fallsview Name
Built nearly 20 years ago for $1 billion, the casino houses more than 3,500 slot machines and 130 gaming tables.
Opening in 2004, the casino is:
Built on a cliff overlooking the world-famous Horseshoe Falls, Fallsview Casino Resort is the largest and most elegant gaming resort facility in Canada.
So PlayFallsview comes to Ontario’s expanded online gambling market with a lot of brand recognition.
Plus, as Mohegan Digital Gaming President Richard Roberts shared with an SBC Summit North America 2022 crowd on July 13, his company’s online gambling model provides loyalty program rewards at the partnered land-based casinos. Therefore, gamblers have an omnichannel experience.
Regulatory Headaches
If it seems like the PlayFallsview debut is seeing less fanfare than previous app launches, it may be because it’s a little anticlimactic.
That’s because the entities behind it have been working to secure regulatory approval for months. So this launch may feel a little overdue.
Roberts talked publicly about the process in December 2021:
As a land-based operator, we’ve got a lot of hurdles different than online. So we’re challenged by the ease of getting licensed, based upon what we’ve had to go through from a retail perspective. So there’s got to be a level of uniformity, from that perspective. Particularly around protecting the players, protecting the operators that have been working for decades within the province.
Then the OLG iGaming market monopoly ended on April 4, when the expanded online gambling market launched.
Finally, on May 13, PlayFallsview got its first regulatory approval. That came from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
Today’s tweets from iGO show Mohegan has its operating agreement in place with that entity.
So PlayFallsview’s online gambling approval built brick by brick is now written in stone.
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