Over the last few weeks, US President Donald Trump’s tariffs with various countries, including Canada, have dominated the news. Imposing extra charges on imported goods could help the United States economy, while the country’s trading partners could end up facing higher costs. Many of them have promised retaliatory tariffs of their own.
People are paying close attention to tariffs because they can have long-lasting effects on all sorts of things. If you gamble online at sites such as Betamo Casino Canada, you might think tariffs won’t have any impact on this particular sector at all. However, there can still be consequences further down the line.
The ongoing trade war
The so-called ‘Trade War’ between the US and various countries is very much ongoing. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently commented on the tariffs, saying that the previously special US-Canadian relationship was essentially over. He also said the country has to reimagine its economy and that Canada’s retaliatory tariffs will have the maximum impact on the US.
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So where does this leave online gambling? Tariffs on physical goods aren’t likely to have much of an impact on industries like the iGaming one. There could be issues with the computers that games are created on and the servers that gambling sites are hosted on. These are physical constructions made up of many parts, some of which could have tariff charges applied to them during the manufacturing process. This is something that is more long-term and probably won’t affect Canadian players in the slightest.
Digital tariffs
What could have an effect on Canadians who gamble online, however, is digital tariffs. Any sort of Canadian company that supplies digital products and/or services across the US-Canada border could face charges. There’s no telling what kind of tariffs Trump might impose or how they might work, but they can’t be ruled out given the President’s determination to roll out tariffs in recent weeks.
Realistically, it’s land-based casinos that are most likely to feel the effects of tariffs since these are real-life venues that have a wide range of equipment. Online casinos, on the other hand, are somewhat safer. If digital tariffs are coming, it would be interesting to see how they would affect online gambling in Canada given that most casino sites are based in other countries.
A long-term consequence could be that Canadian sites decide against doing business with US ones and focus on domestic customers and people living in other countries. Digital tariffs could encourage Canada to essentially sever ties with the US market and not rely on American revenue.
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Predictions
It’s hard to tell exactly what short- and long-term effects the US-Canada trade war will have on Canadian online casinos. While they may be impacted in some way further down the line, in all likeliness they probably won’t be affected too much. If anything, it’s going to be land-based casinos and venues with physical equipment that will bear the brunt of the tariffs.
That being said, it could become more challenging for online casinos if digital tariffs are introduced. For the industry’s sake, hopefully these will never come about. If they do, operators will no doubt hope they will be small.
