5 Big Questions About Alberta’s New Sports Betting Market

It may be all eyes on Alberta in 2026.

Missouri is set to launch legal sports betting in December. After that, there are no guarantees of fresh turf for online gambling companies in North America, except, perhaps, in Alberta.

The Western Canadian province has taken several significant steps toward a shake-up of how online gambling is legally done within its borders. And, at some point in 2026, a sizable number of private-sector sportsbooks and online casino sites could be cleared for launch. 

The plan right now is for a new and open market for Alberta sports betting and online casino gambling. There will be no cap on the number of operators that could come under local regulation and compete for business alongside the government-owned Play Alberta, the only provincially authorized iGaming operator at the moment.

However, Alberta must still take a couple more big strides before residents can start wagering with the likes of DraftKings, FanDuel, or other online sports betting sites. Here, then, are five big questions that need to be answered.

When will Alberta’s new iGaming market launch?

This is arguably the biggest TBD. It is worth noting, however, that Alberta is moving toward opening an iGaming market like the one Ontario did in 2022. That launch took years of work, but it made Ontario the only province in Canada where private-sector iGaming operators are authorized to do business.

The Alberta government is proposing to change that status quo.

Bill 48, the iGaming Alberta Act, was passed in the provincial legislature in May. Its passage has teed up the province to go a route similar to the Ontario sports betting market, where 50 authorized operators and more than 80 authorized websites offer SGPs, poker, table games, and slots.

Back at it today and just wanted to duly note that the iGaming Alberta Act received Royal Assent last week, an important and yet totally ceremonial and automatic step for the legislation. pic.twitter.com/d0h66xDdoY

— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) May 20, 2025

But before Alberta can launch an Ontario-like iGaming market, which would be the second of its sort in Canada, the province must still set up a new government corporation, draft and implement new regulations, and put concerned stakeholders at ease. That appears to still be the case, as summer and summer vacations ensued after the passage of Bill 48. It could now be a busy fall for the Alberta government and Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis, the proposed regulator for the new iGaming market.

The creation of a new government entity is particularly important. The Alberta iGaming Corporation will make it possible for the province to allow private-sector operators to offer online gambling while giving the government enough control to avoid violating Canada’s Criminal Code. In Ontario, operators sign contracts with a similar entity, iGaming Ontario, which authorizes them to take bets in the province. 

But the Alberta iGaming Corp. needs a board of directors, management, staff, and office space. It may need a logo and other corporate stuff for all we know. That takes time and is just one of several things still being ironed out. 

So, when will the new Alberta iGaming market go live? The province’s de facto iGaming minister, Dale Nally, suggested in June it could be “early” 2026.

Among operators, the commentary about when they might launch in Alberta’s new iGaming market could be summed up as “2026 ... but maybe later in 2026?”

PENN Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden said in August that they’d been told early next year. Since then, PointsBet and Betway-owner Super Group have suggested spring 2026 and the second half of 2026, respectively, as when they could go live.

In short, then: probably 2026. Exactly when in 2026, we don’t know. But everyone’s still saying 2026. 

Alberta's "grey" operators may want to get their ducks in a row anyway.

There are indeed iGaming companies already present and doing business in Alberta that are not yet regulated by the province. Furthermore, Nally has suggested the timeframe for a transition of those operators into the province's regulated iGaming market could be shorter than the one Ontario offered.

“What we heard from the operators is that when it was done in Ontario, those companies that came on board on Day 1 were at a disadvantage for the next six months, because those in the grey market had a bit of a ‘Wild West’ approach when it came to advertising,” the minister said in June 2024. “So we're probably going to have a tighter window than they had in Ontario.”

What will the advertising rules be in Alberta?

Advertising rules for online sports betting in Canada is a thing again, and lawmakers in Ottawa are preparing to debate once more whether some sort of federal intervention is needed.

Meanwhile, one big question that still needs to be answered in Alberta is how online sportsbooks and casino sites could market themselves to prospective customers. 
 
It’s a delicate dance. 

In Ontario, there was a boom in advertising that irked a lot of people, but it also served a purpose.

The province had a new regulated market for iGaming. Then came a wave of TV spots, sports betting-sponsored segments during intermissions, and a variety of other promotional efforts. This rubbed some concerned onlookers the wrong way, due in no small part to the fact that sporting events are still watched by a lot of kids. 

Up now is Alberta's de facto iGaming minister, @DaleNally_AB, who says they have not made a decision on advertising rules or the tax rate for province's coming competitive iGaming market. Cabinet ministers will meet in fall and hammer those out, he says.

— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) June 18, 2025

However, one of the reasons for Ontario’s launch of a regulated iGaming market was to divert gambling away from “grey” and “black” market operators to provincially regulated ones. How do you nudge the public to wager with the Ontario-regulated versions if they aren’t aware those Ontario-regulated versions exist? They needed to advertise themselves. 

Ontario has tried to find the right balance for all of this. For example, you aren’t allowed to publicly advertise inducements to gamble, such as free bets, deposit matches, and bet boosts. Ontario also allowed, and then restricted, the use of athletes and celebrities in iGaming marketing in response to the advertising backlash. Now, Connor McDavid can only promote responsible iGaming in Ontario.

That said, the looming debate in Ottawa suggests people are still unhappy about iGaming advertising in Canada. Alberta now has to make the call on what sort of advertising it will permit, and there is a non-zero chance it will be a little more laissez-faire than what Ontario has done. This could be true for advertising incentives and in using athletes in commercials.

“The free market capitalist in me supports (letting athletes participate) but, of course, it’s not going to be my decision,” Nally said in June. “This is going to be a cabinet decision that we’re going to make. We’ll be making those decisions in the fall, and then we’re going to be getting back to you on what that’s going to look like.”

What’s going to happen with daily fantasy, poker, and horse racing?

Those familiar with the Ontario iGaming experience knows there have been some bumps along the road.

Two major ones have had to do with peer-to-peer gambling and pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing.

When the regulated market launched in Ontario, participating operators had to abide by the province’s rules. Those rules include a requirement that “games on gaming sites shall be provided only within Ontario,” which means Ontario-regulated operators must ensure all players are within Ontario as well. Ontario also treats “pay-to-play fantasy sports” as gambling, which means anyone offering it must be an authorized and provincially regulated iGaming operator.

These things have essentially wiped out pay-to-play DFS in Ontario (at least via provincially regulated operators), with companies like DraftKings and FanDuel removing those contests from their Ontario sites. Other DFS operators like PrizePicks and Underdog have steered clear of Ontario altogether. The rules have also limited the size of online poker games, among other things.

This has been a real drag for DFS fans in Ontario, and it may be contributing to the lingering grey market for online gambling in the province.

So, with that in mind, the Ontario government asked the province's Court of Appeal if it would be legal for its iGaming to join hands with iGaming outside of Canada. In other words, if it would be OK for provincial DFS and poker players to participate in games with people in, say, the U.S. 

After a hearing last November, a decision on that court reference is still pending. It’s likely it will be issued before Alberta launches its iGaming market. Even then, though, it’s also likely the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. 

So what’s Alberta going to do? Nally has suggested it could, at the very least, pool its “liquidity” (aka gambling money) with Ontario.

“We’re going to join Ontario in terms of liquidity and hopefully have similar, like-minded provinces follow suit,” Nally said in an interview with Covers last October.

Could there then be Ontario and Alberta-only DFS contests and poker games? Possibly. That, presumably, would be up to the operators. 

New @Covers: DraftKings and FanDuel Shutting Down Daily Fantasy Contests in Ontario Ahead of Online Sports Betting Launch https://t.co/85WooX3SrI

— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) March 28, 2022

Another byproduct of Ontario launching a regulated iGaming market is that it wiped out a way of wagering on horse racing that many in the province used. This wagering was offered by “grey” operators, which may be regulated abroad or outside the province, but not by the province itself.

In other words, this type of betting was not sanctioned by the province. What was sanctioned was permitting some of those operators to transition into Ontario’s new regulated market.

However, the rules of that market also include restrictions around offering betting on horse racing. Only pari-mutuel wagering has been legalized in the country, and Woodbine Entertainment Group is the only entity in Ontario with a pari-mutuel wagering license. Therefore, anybody that joined the province’s iGaming market and had been offering betting on horse racing had to stop.

Woodbine offers provincewide online wagering on horse races through its HPIbet platform. Woodbine has also partnered with bet365 and the government-owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. Those two iGaming operators can now offer wagering on horse racing, albeit using Woodbine’s systems. 

The partnerships and the new avenues for betting on horse racing took time, though. And if there are people in Alberta who are betting on horse racing right now using a grey market sportsbook, they could wake up one morning and find those betting markets have disappeared. Again, this is what happened in Ontario. 

It’s also possible that integrations similar to those implemented by Woodbine in Ontario could occur in Alberta. HPIbet, for example, is already available and used by horseplayers in Alberta.

Yet Woodbine is based in Toronto. The not-for-profit-like company would need to get a new set of local stakeholders on board with making pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing available via provincially regulated sportsbooks in Alberta.

“If there are opportunities to expand ... via integrating into other platforms, we are very interested,” said David Vivenes, executive vice president, revenue, brand and experience for Woodbine, in an interview with Covers in August. “Again, that not being our home market, it requires different partners coming together to make that a reality.”

What’s going to happen to my futures?

In Ontario (and sorry to belabour the Ontario stuff, but it’s really instructive for what might happen in Alberta), the province believed it needed a clean break between the grey market bonanza and the opening of a new regulated market. Part of this meant settling bets that had been made with grey market operators transitioning into the regulated market.

So, in Ontario, someone who had a Super Bowl future in their account with a grey market book could have had that bet voided and their money refunded to them before April 4, 2022, the day the new Ontario iGaming market launched. Indeed, many futures bets were voided in Ontario so that things could start fresh in the new regulated market. 

In Alberta, then, there could come a day of reckoning for bets that were made in the grey market. It's also possible there is another mass voiding of grey-market action by operators.

Still, we don’t know when exactly Alberta is going to launch its new iGaming market. So, when the day of reckoning comes is likewise TBD. But, it’s possible something similar to Ontario happens. Think about that before placing your next future, especially if you're making that bet in 2026.

How much will it cost operators to launch in Alberta?

Ontario settled on a 20/80 split on iGaming revenue, so the province keeps around 20% of iGaming operator revenue and the operators get the other 80%. Operators must also pay $100,000 per year for every site they offer in the province.

In Alberta, we don’t know what the cost of entry and of doing business will be, or it at least hasn’t been made public yet.

“Ultimately, it’ll be a government decision, what our tax rate is,” Nally said last October. “And we haven’t landed anywhere.”

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