Well, let’s say a person is searching in Canada using google. ca, your site is hosted in Canada, you will probably be higher in search than if the person in Canada uses google .com
So I would say it has a lot to do where the you are hosted
Plus if your site is included in all of googles indexes or not
for example I’m number 3 for search for “skadjfhpsijdhf” (no quotes) on .ca but nowhere on .com
If you are horse a gambling portal I don’t think you should be hosted in the US – I’ve been kicked off hosting sites
hope that helps