Alberta starts registration for private digital betting companies

The registration process follows last year’s amendments to Alberta’s Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act, which are part of a regulatory framework aimed at reigning in the province’s unregulated gambling sector by opening up the market to licensing in 2026. Ontario is currently the only market in Canada that offers legal, private-sector online gambling and sports betting; it’s been open to businesses like DraftKings and theScore since 2022. 

The only regulated digital gambling currently available in Alberta is offered through PlayAlberta. Managed by Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis (AGLC), the platform saw a total of $5.3 billion in bets placed for 2024 — a nearly 21-percent increase from 2023, according to Open Alberta. 

Despite being the only legal game in town, the Province estimates PlayAlberta only accounts for 23 to 32 percent of the province’s overall iGaming market.

“With unregulated iGaming widely available in our province, it is our responsibility to step in, regulate the market, and hold private providers to the highest standards to protect Albertans, particularly our youth,” said Dale Nally, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, in a press release on Wednesday.

Under the new framework, prospective operators will need to go through a registration process and pay associated fees prior to being able to advertise or register potential customers, meaning acceptance of deposits and wagers would be illegal until the operator’s registration is approved and the regulated private market is launched.

Additionally, gaming companies would be required to ensure their advertising isn’t targeting anyone under 18 years of age and excludes professional athletes in any material related to sports betting. 

The framework also includes player protections to be implemented in online casinos and gaming sites, including system-wide self-exclusion and financial and time-based limiting.

Operators will also be required to provide gaming activity statements and intervene when signs of problem gambling emerge, though no mention of what that intervention would actually look like was outlined.

Once launched, the licensed sector will be overseen by the Alberta iGaming Corporation, which will manage the private market and operate similarly to iGaming Ontario. Regulatory functions will continue to be performed by the AGLC. 

Risk Factors

Because much of Alberta’s gambling scene is unregulated, safeguards around problem gambling, like those being imposed by the provincial government, are often unregulated as well. 

A report from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario—an independent research organization—found that many unregulated online gambling platforms in Canada include some responsible-gaming safeguards. However, the report also outlined that these tools are often not promoted, and therefore are underutilized.

That matters when you consider the breadth of people regularly placing bets on these sites. 

A survey from Ipsos and the Canadian Gaming Association found that over 77 percent of online gamblers in Alberta wagered exclusively on unregulated sites over the three-month period the survey took place. Only 10 percent used PlayAlberta exclusively.

That figure is made more salient when considering the rates of gambling addiction being reported in Canada in recent years. According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), 32 percent of Canadians aged 18 to 29 reported gambling, with 69 percent meeting criteria for problem gambling as outlined by the Problem Gambling Severity Index. 

The same report by the CCSA also found that people who gamble online are more likely to develop addiction. The report showed more than 40 percent of online gamblers in Canada met problem gambling criteria, and more than 93 percent exceeded what’s known as the lower-risk threshold. The CCSA defines the lower-risk threshold as having three main components: gambling no more than one percent of household income per month, gambling no more than four days per month, and avoiding regular gambling at more than two types of games. Young men, in particular, were found to be at higher risk.

While there are ethical considerations to Alberta’s push to regulate its gaming grey market, there are also financial ones, too. In 2025, PlayAlberta contributed $275 million in net sales to provincial coffers, a $35-million increase from the previous year. While it’s unclear the exact amount of money circulating through Alberta’s gaming ecosystem (the AGLC only tabulates revenues from PlayAlberta), regulation and licensing would allow the province to cast a wider net and collect more of the revenue produced by online gambling. Ontario’s iGaming market, in contrast, brought in $3.2 billion last fiscal year. The province’s population is a bit more than three times the size of Alberta’s.