Established in 2011, GeoComply has one mission in mind: "make the internet a safer place”, and it pursues this lofty goal by providing advanced compliance and anti-fraud solutions around the globe.

The Canadian fraud prevention and cybersecurity company tracks online behaviours across multiple market segments, including media and entertainment, crypto and financial services, and online gambling.

As a byproduct of ensuring the compliance and safety of users when engaging with these mediums, they collate a lot of user behaviour information. Read on to learn more about what they discovered about Canada’s gambling habits, and more specifically, those of Quebecers.

 Interested Gamblers Swarm Ontario, Digitally

According to the data compiled by GeoComply, the beginning of the NFL season saw a marked increase in punters based in Quebec looking to get in on the action by signing up with Ontario’s licensed gambling sites.

During the NFL season, there were more than 2300 attempts to join Ontario betting sites using VPNs and other proxy tools. Delving into the origin of these engagements company discovered that nearly 19% of them tracked back to IP addresses within the province of Quebec.

Beyond the hype around the NFL, GeoComply continues to see rising interest from Quebec in accessing legal online casinos and betting sites. The company reviewed a batch of more than 750,000 recent access attempts from across Canada, which attempted to use IP spoofing and VPNs to circumvent local restrictions and found that more than 6000 of these originated from within Quebec.

 Quebec Implored to Emulate Ontario

A post-pandemic report by the Canadian news outlet CBC found that online gambling in Quebec has risen from 5% to 15%. With a population of 8.8 million people, this represents a significant gambling-friendly community that the government currently needs to serve adequately, especially when you consider that it is not illegal for them to gamble at international offshore casinos and betting sites.

The most recent statistics from iGaming Ontario show that the province generates more than $500 million per quarter from its 71 licensed gambling operators. With an average of $191 in monthly deposits from its player base, this is a low-risk, high-return market for Ontario.

With Ontario and Quebec estimated to be very close in terms of online gambling interest and revenue potential – most based on their land-based equivalencies, it is clear to see why industry experts feel the government is missing out on a fantastic opportunity to generate revenue and offer its residents access to entertainment they are already seeking out internationally.