Alberta Accelerates Towards iGaming Market Launch

The turn of the calendar into September means a lot of things for gamblers, particularly sports betting fans.

It means the launch of another NFL season – the Baltimore Ravens are in Kansas City to take on the Super Bowl-defending Chiefs in the Thursday night season opener on Sept. 5.

It also means the ramp up to new NBA and NHL seasons, with Major League Baseball heading into their playoff season and World Series chase.

There’s more sports fan interest in the Canadian Football League as well, as the schedule melds post Labour Day, and playoff races start to take shape (regular season wraps up Oct. 26).

In Alberta this fall there’s a little extra cheese on that betting burger.

A new Ontario-style open, competitive, regulated igaming market is coming fast.

When?

When asked earlier this summer, Dale Nally, Alberta’s Minister of Service and Red Tape Reduction, quarterbacking the province’s due diligence as they work towards the new regulatory regime, said that while he couldn’t give a specific date for market launch, people are going to be “surprised at how fast we get this done and roll this out.”

Industry insiders, including Jay Snowden, Chief Executive Officer and President of PENN Entertainment, which owns Canada’s theScore Bet, are looking at early 2025.

In late July, Nally said consultation with First Nations had been completed (Alberta premier Danielle Smith has said First Nations will be front and centre in the new igaming regulatory regime). Nally said then that consultation with land-based casinos in Alberta was next up, followed by consultation with racetrack operators.

Who?

Big operators like PointsBet Canada, theScore Bet (PENN), Betway (Super Group), and NorthStar Bets have all made public statements that they’ll be jumping in.

Interesting to point out – Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC), which operates the only legal place one can go for online gambling at the present time, said it has captured 45 per cent of the digital gaming market via its Play Alberta platform (313,000 registered users), meaning there’s a sizable grey market operating in the province.

Play Alberta, which launched in late 2020, has generated a projected $5.36 billion in total bets for 2023-24.

What Will It Look Like?

Nally has made it clear this summer that Alberta will look a lot like Ontario in how it’s structured. As Ron Segev, Founding Partner of Segev LLP, a prominent law firm that in part specializes igaming, says, according to his sources, Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) is supporting the back office of AGLC in this new endeavour.

Segev’s firm, also with offices in Toronto and Vancouver, worked a lot with igaming operators during the Ontario rollout, and just added a Calgary office to deal with what everyone expects will be a lot of entrants there.

“If that's the case [AGLC calling on AGCO], then a fast rollout, I think, is to be expected,” he said. “The AGLC has the resources to roll out quick. The government is aggressive. They want to see success yesterday. They don't want to have to wait for the bureaucrat machine to spin up.

“We believe [the Alberta model will be very similar to Ontario’s], but what we know with certainty is what exists today, which is the current AGLC framework. In terms of background checks, disclosure, the investigation process, we suspect that a lot of that is going to be the same. And so we're urging our clients to get in touch with us so that we can get them ready.

“If it is the same as iGaming Ontario, then it's going to be a first come, first serve process. So, if you're first in the door, and your paperwork looks good, there's no issues with it, it's complete, then ostensibly, you're going to be first to go live.”

Nally has already said AGLC will not oversee new regulated operators in the new regulatory regime, responding to concerns from independents about sharing data with the provincial crown corporation. In Ontario, iGaming Ontario manages igaming, with AGCO as the regulator, so there’s separation there between the crown corporation (Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation) and the other igaming brands.

How Big Will It Be?

One industry source we spoke pegged Alberta as potentially the eighth largest in North America under a new competitive regulatory regime. Despite having a population around 4.3 million (Ontario is over 14.5 million), Albertans tend to bet more capita than people in Ontario do, Segev added.

As of this morning, the Ontario igaming market currently sits at 50 licensed operators and 82 gaming websites. iGaming Ontario’s latest market performance report, covering FY 2024-25 (Q1, April 1 to June 30) showed a 31 per cent jump in total wagers ($18.4 billion) year-over-year. Q1’s total gaming revenue ($726 million) was a 34 per cent year-over-year jump.

According to Deloitte, in its second year of operation, Ontario online casinos and sportsbooks has brought in $790 million in revenue for the provincial government, $75 million for municipalities and $380 million for the federal government, sustaining almost 15,000 jobs.

Average salary in the business is $122,000, according to the report, well above the median salary. In 2022, 1,803 direct jobs were created; in 2023-24 that number was 2,675.

Ontario's regulated competitive igaming market, not including igaming offered by OLG, sustained 2,800 more full-time equivalent jobs in its second year than its first, according to Deloitte.

However, as people in the industry say, Alberta isn’t Ontario. The province has 29-land-based casinos, offering around 15,000 slot machines, 800 VLT, 500 table games, commercial lotteries and charitable gaming activity.

Alberta has seen the highest inter-provincial migration – 60,000 in 2023 that left mostly Ontario to move to Alberta, plus people new to Canada who went to Alberta, plus factoring in temporary as well as permanent migration, totaling 250,000 last year alone, according to a spokesperson from Environics Analytics. The cost living is lower there.

And it’s especially young people going to Alberta, with more disposable or discretionary income in the province. Plus, Albertans love their sports.

Despite that, if it’s anything like the way the Ontario market has rolled out over its two-plus years, online casino will likely dominate. According to that iGaming Ontario Q1 report, casino games, including slots, live and computer-based table games and peer-to-peer bingo, was 84 per cent of total wagers ($15.5 billion), and 73 per cent ($529 million) of gaming revenue in Ontario.