CALGARY, Alta. – A cheer went up on Saturday on a sunny Calgary patio. Not because Canada scored, because that didn’t happen at all during the country’s World Cup match versus Morocco. But because Canadian forward Jonathan David managed a shot on goal.
David’s shot on goal meant that a bet with "boosted" odds, placed by some of the folks on the patio, had cashed. Even though Canada went on to lose 3-0 on Saturday, at least somebody won something.
Because I had to know, I went up and asked these guys: Who’d you bet with? Who gave you the boost?
- Most online sports betting in Alberta currently happens through unregulated "grey market" operators rather than the province's only authorized platform, Play Alberta.
- Alberta will launch a regulated competitive iGaming market on July 13, allowing dozens of private sportsbooks to operate under provincial oversight.
- The province hopes to move bettors to regulated sites and plans to crack down on operators that do not join the new legal market.
Spoiler alert: not the province's
I was pretty sure I knew who had not offered the boost. I’d logged onto the province’s only authorized online sportsbook at this point, Play Alberta, and made some bets of my own before the match. However, Play Alberta’s offered boost was +220 for Canada to score a goal.
So, who, then, was offering that sweet David promo? Turns out it was another, currently “grey” operator in the province. And that is, by the provincial government’s admission, pretty typical in Alberta.
It’s estimated that roughly 70% of all online gambling in Alberta is happening with an operator that is not Play Alberta. Or, said another way, that the bulk of online sports betting and internet-based casino gambling in the province currently takes place with companies that are not currently authorized by the provincial government to take that action.
Also forgot to tweet this earlier but I wrote something about the “channelization” goal of Alberta’s soon-to-launch iGaming market. It’s 70%, which strikes me as pretty doable.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 3, 2026
Alberta Aims to Turn Its Online Sports Betting Market Inside Out https://t.co/iTB4CzQrQA@Covers
Dan Keene, chief executive officer of the Alberta iGaming Corp. (AiGC), said they had polling done for them that suggested 74% of Albertans believe there are other legal iGaming sites in the province beyond Play Alberta.
“That's just one statistic,” Keene said in an interview with Covers this week. “But I would point to that particular statistic to at least help answer [the] question in terms of how big is the market, or what is people's perception of the legal market versus the illegal market.”
In other words, many people in Alberta may believe they are gambling on provincially authorized iGaming sites when they are not. Others still may know and not care.
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Here comes the boom
This is why, on July 13, online gambling in Alberta is about to change in a big way, because there is a lot of online gambling happening in the province. It’s just not with the entity that has the backing and blessing of the provincial government. It’s in the so-called “grey” or “black” market, meaning with operators that may be regulated or licensed outside the province or abroad, but not by the province itself.
So, in a week, the new Alberta sports betting market will launch.
When that happens, multiple private-sector operators of online sports betting and casino gaming sites can launch within a new regulatory framework (which, among other things, requires them to sign contracts with Keene and the AiGC).
Some of those operators will be taking their first bet ever in Alberta, but others have been doing so for years.
Brands such as BET99, bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel are all lined up to participate in Alberta’s iGaming market. So are many others; as of last Friday, around 50 different apps and sites were already registered with the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC).
One early observation I’ll make is that AGLC’s Play Alberta has McMahon Stadium sewn up advertising-wise. Lots of signage, and the only competition I’ve seen so far in Calgary are FanDuel casino ads on digital billboards along the highway. FD can go live in AB on July 13. pic.twitter.com/GcbEiD2kGf
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 3, 2026
The AGLC will act as regulator of the new iGaming market. It also remains the operator of Play Alberta, at least for now, as a sale of the platform recently became a possibility.
At any rate, Play Alberta is about to face a lot more provincially regulated competition. And the hope among policymakers and regulators in Alberta is that by authorizing a bunch of additional iGaming sites, the bulk of online gambling in the province will take place with provincially regulated brands.
The AiGC is hoping to flip the province entirely, with the Crown corporation setting a goal for the new iGaming market of 70%. That is the percentage of online gambling in Alberta that the AiGC wants happening with provincially regulated sites by July 13, 2027.
Alberta will also get some money out of the new iGaming market. The provincial government currently anticipates earning around $76 million in fresh tax revenue from the first year of the regulatory framework, with the money mostly coming from Alberta's levy on operators of a bit more than 20% of their income.
However, the government has been careful to stress that the iGaming market is not about raising revenue, but providing consumer protection and regulatory oversight.
It's not an original idea. The type of regulatory model being rolled out in Alberta was first implemented in Ontario in 2022. And, if you’re going by "channelization rate" alone, the Ontario sports betting and iGaming market has done well.
An Ipsos study, commissioned by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario and released in May, suggested that 91.1% of Ontario bettors are now wagering with provincially regulated sites.
“Prior to the launch of Ontario’s competitive iGaming market in April 2022, the Government of Ontario had estimated that 70% of online gambling was taking place on unregulated sites,” a press release noted.
The governments of Alberta and Ontario, then, see things pretty similarly. Before you authorize some private-sector competition, the data suggests that the bulk of online wagering is going to happen with entities that heed no provincial regulation and pay no provincial taxes.
Anecdotally, that’s what I’ve been hearing on the ground in Alberta. However, the “grey” market in the province is already beginning to either shape up or ship out.
Coolbet says it is officially shutting down in Alberta on July 13, the day the province's new regulated iGaming market will go live.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 6, 2026
"Due to changes in Alberta's iGaming regulations, we'll no longer be able to offer our services in the province without a local licence." pic.twitter.com/zMWw6FTw21
Coolbet, for example, has said it will be shutting down in Alberta a minute before July 13, the day the regulated market opens. The online sportsbook and casino operator was also once part of the Ontario iGaming market before it shuttered its business in the province entirely.
It may not be the last company to make such a move.
The AGLC has published guidelines for “grey” operators intending to transition into the regulated market. In short, they have a limited time to get with the program.
According to the regulator, any operator "who is or has been operating an unregulated lottery scheme in Alberta" has to file an application to participate in the province's regulated market by no later than July 13. That is, again, the day the regulated market launches, and also the day grey operators must cease "unregulated" activities, such as taking bets from Albertans without the province's say-so.
Catch these hands
The AGLC says it can, on a "case-by-case basis," consider a three-month extension to this deadline. That means grey operators have until Oct. 13 at the latest to either join or risk being found unsuitable to join.
These operators could also find themselves targeted by regulators, because the Alberta iGaming market is going from shades of grey to very black and white. Come July 13, either you're regulated by the province, or about to be regulated by the province, or you're the black market.
“You will see us become more aggressive with the black market,” Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Minister Dale Nally told Covers in May at the SBC Summit Canada conference in Toronto. “We're not going to telegraph everything that we're going to do, but I think that we have been hands-off the grey and black market up until this point, [and] anybody that remains in the black market will discover that we're not going to be hands-off once we go live.”
Nally (Alberta's de facto iGaming minister) added that once everyone has been given “ample opportunity” to join the regulated market, the province will then “set our sights” on the operators that have not joined. The government and regulators will then try to make it as difficult as possible for these laggards to do business.
“We know that they're always going to change how they operate, change their name, do different things,” Nally said. “We're aware of that, but we're not going to give them a free pass. It won't be business as usual for the black market.”
