Ontario cuts PointsBet's suspension from five days to two

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) has reduced the suspension it had planned for PointsBet Canada's website in the province from five days to two. The date on which the suspension will take effect has not yet been announced.

In February, AGCO had announced that it would suspend the company's license on the grounds that it failed to detect suspicious bets. This was the first such step taken by a regulator against a licensed operator in Canada. The case concerned the 2024 betting manipulation scheme involving NBA player Jontay Porter. PointsBet was alleged to have failed to adequately monitor, document and report the relevant betting activity.

Under the new settlement, PointsBet will undergo an independent audit of its Ontario operations, carried out by an auditor and using a method approved by AGCO. The regulator did not explain the reason for the reduction in the suspension. AGCO stated that the settlement concludes the regulatory process.

After the scheme became public, AGCO had asked all licensed betting operators in Ontario to confirm whether they had offered bets on Porter. After a long delay, PointsBet first said that it had not offered such bets. When the US Department of Justice indictment laid out the details of the scheme, the company acknowledged that it had seen these bets.

AGCO reviewed PointsBet's data and confirmed the signs of suspicious betting identified in 2024, stating that they should have been detected and reported at the time. PointsBet, for its part, had expressed disappointment at the initial decision, arguing that the failure resulted from human error during a corporate transition process and that there was no intent to withhold information.