The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK) and Entain have ended their longstanding partnership in Sports Interaction (SI), the Nation’s trailblazing online gambling platform.
In a statement issued Oct. 30, the MCK announced that Mohawk Online (MOL), its wholly-owned gaming business, had jointly ended its exclusive partnership with Entain’s Avid International subsidiary effective October 28. Despite this, Entain will maintain its office in the territory and its licenses with the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission (KGC).
Sports Interaction will not be shutting down as a result of the breakup. Rather, Entain will take full control of the Sports Interaction platform. The company told Canadian Gaming Business that there will be “no change” to its offerings for Canadian consumers.
In the announcement, recently-elected MCK grand chief Cody Diabo attributed the partnership’s demise to regulatory changes affecting MOL’s operating ability.
Due to the change in the regulatory landscape for gaming in Canada and economic reasons, we have made the decision to part ways with Entain PLC and look forward to maintaining a cordial relationship in the future. The end of the partnership with Entain will certainly bring forth new opportunities, as the conclusion of the partnership also releases MCK from its obligations of exclusivity. MCK is now free to pursue other opportunities in online gaming, under a new brand.
The tie-cutting comes more than four months after Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer, MCK’s former grand chief, acknowledged that the “writing was on the wall” for the Entain relationship.
Sky-Deer made the comments in late June during a debate aired on local radio in the run-up to MCK’s elections.
Trailblazing platform a victim of Ontario regulation
One of the first brands licensed by the KGC in the 1990s, Sports Interaction—provided exclusively to MOL by Avid—was a pioneer in online gambling.
As the MCK acknowledged in its statement, MOL was a socio-economic initiative created to provide community funding for Kahnawà:ke. Over the years, Sports Interaction’s operation has earned millions in revenue for the community located just outside of Montreal.
Per a July report from The Eastern Door (TED), MOL operations have generated over $39 million since 2015. Of that, $23 million was paid in dividends to the MCK for use in the community.
However, following the federal government’s 2021 passage of Bill C-218, which extended the power to provinces to “conduct and manage” single-event sports betting, Ontario launched its commercial market on April 4, 2022.
Two months prior, Entain purchased Avid for $300 million. Since the Ontario launch, MOL has operated SI in Canada outside Ontario, with Entain operating within the province under its iGaming Ontario (iGO) license.
In its recent statement, the MCK said the opening of Ontario’s market—which it unsuccessfully challenged in court—undermined its ability to operate.
The Council considers that Ontario has taken actions to actively undermine Kahnawà:ke as a legitimate gaming jurisdiction while failing to recognize Kahnawà:ke’s right to conduct, facilitate, and regulate gaming and contravenes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Future of Mohawk Online remains uncertain
Diabo, in a more recent TED report, said Bill C-218 essentially set MOL’s problems into motion.
Really it falls down to that 218 legislation that really kind of set the stage for a lot of different things. We tried at the time to get a carveout. Were there maybe other political actions we could have taken at the time? Who knows. I don’t know what could have been done at that point.
Recently, lawsuits between MCK, Diabo, and MOL’s former head, Dean Montour, who has claimed defamation and wrongful termination, became public. Montour has also accused the MCK of mismanaging MOL, leading to its “catastrophic failure.” MCK has countersued Montour over his accusatory comments.
Although Diabo has declined to speak to the lawsuits directly, he asserted that external forces are to blame. The new grand chief also expressed hope for Senator Scott Tannas’ Bill S-268, which could create new gaming opportunities for Kahnawà:ke without compromising its sovereignty.
Further, Diabo said that in the short term, there is no plan to pursue online gaming revenues under the existing legal landscape.
Essentially, right now, it’s just on hiatus. Whether or not we plan to cancel the name or just keep it on the books for another opportunity, we’ve yet to have that conversation.
Fortunately, the extension of a 2018 pilot project that introduced electronic gaming machines has dramatically increased Kahnawà:ke’s land-based revenues. So, despite MOL’s substantial losses, Diabo said the MCK remains in good financial shape.
For the community, this is the nature of doing business, so to speak… However, land-based had spiked up to fill in that gap a little bit, so there’s overall no loss. There’s just no extra coming into the community.
