Operational performance — By line of business

Alcohol

Licensing

The Liquor Licence Act and its Regulations provide the Registrar with the authority for regulating and licensing liquor sales licences, ferment-on-premise facility licences, liquor delivery service licences, manufacturer’s licences, and manufacturer’s representative licences.

The AGCO is also responsible for overseeing the administration of Special Occasion Permits (SOPs), which are required for occasional private events (such as weddings and receptions) or public events (such as community festivals) where beverage alcohol will be served and/or sold to the public.

TABLE 10: Total number of liquor licences and Special Occasion Permits (SOPs)

¹ The decline in SOPs can be attributed to government measures to limit public gatherings during the pandemic

VQA wine sales at Farmers’ Markets

As of March 31, 2021, there were 84 wineries selling their fruit wine, honey wine, maple wine or VQA wine at 226 Ontario Farmers’ Markets.

TABLE 11: Compliance Services inspections – Alcohol

TABLE 12: Notices of Proposal and Orders of Monetary Penalty (alcohol)

If the Registrar proposes to refuse, revoke or suspend a licence, the Registrar must serve a Notice of Proposal (NOP) on the applicant/licensee outlining the reasons for the proposed action.

Applicants/licensees who dispute an NOP may appeal the proposal to the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT).

Gaming

OLG Lotteries

TABLE 13: Compliance Services inspections – Gaming

Gaming registrations

Gaming registrations must be obtained by individuals or businesses wishing to:

• provide goods or services to charitable or religious organizations to assist with the conduct and management of their licensed lottery event, or any business that manufactures bingo paper or break open tickets;
• sell lottery products on behalf of the OLG, or provide goods or services related to lottery products to the OLG;
• provide goods or services to, or work for a casino, slot machine facility or charitable gaming (cGaming) site.

In reviewing applications, an eligibility assessment is carried out by the Registrar concerning the character, integrity, financial responsibility and competence of those persons or businesses and their suitability for registration.

TABLE 14: Total number of gaming and lottery registrations

Charitable gaming licences

The AGCO administers the charitable lottery licensing program in Ontario. This includes lottery events conducted and managed by charitable or religious organizations (such as bingo, raffles and the sale of break open tickets). The AGCO also issues registrations to individuals or businesses that wish to provide goods or services to the charitable gaming sector and carries out inspection and compliance assurance activities to ensure that charitable gaming licensees and registrants are operating in accordance with the law and in the public interest.

The issuance of charitable lottery licences continues to be a responsibility shared between the AGCO and local municipalities. The AGCO licenses raffle prizes over $50,000 and bingo prize boards over $5,500. Municipalities have the authority to issue licences with prize boards less than these amounts.

TABLE 15: Lottery licences issued

Electronic gaming equipment and system approvals

Technical and Laboratory Services Branch

Ontario’s public confidence in gaming is largely based upon the integrity and fairness of the games and gaming systems in play. The Technical and Laboratory Services Branch ensures the technical integrity of gaming technology by testing and providing approvals of games and related gaming systems.

This technology is used throughout the province in all gaming industries and sectors regulated by the AGCO, including casino gaming, charitable/raffle gaming, lotteries and igaming.

Gaming Laboratory

The AGCO Gaming Laboratory (Gaming Lab) is composed of highly qualified and experienced experts in an in-house lab that is equipped with the same gaming systems used at gaming sites in Ontario.

The Gaming Lab is accredited to the international standard ISO 17025:2017 for testing laboratories, considered the international benchmark for excellence in testing laboratories. This achievement sets the AGCO apart as the only known gaming regulator with an in-house accredited gaming lab. This accreditation provides annual third-party assurance of the ongoing quality of the testing performed by the Gaming Lab.

In 2020–2021, the Gaming Lab did not conduct its annual survey of regulated entities due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. The Gaming Lab will conduct its annual survey in 2021–22 to gather valuable feedback from regulated Gaming-Related Suppliers to enable it to continue to provide industry-leading services.

TABLE 16: Gaming Laboratory

Note: The average turnaround time for approval in 2020–21 was 22 days, which is the fastest among Canadian jurisdictions according to Gaming Operators. The goal is to maintain or further improve the turnaround time in the upcoming fiscal year.