CALGARY, Alta. – There’s not much that Albertans will want for in terms of online sports betting come Monday. There is, however, one exception: horse racing.
The sport of kings is set to be sidelined in Alberta’s competitive iGaming market, meaning the province’s regulated sportsbooks won’t offer betting on horse racing.
- Alberta's regulated iGaming market launches on July 13 with about 50 sportsbooks, but none will offer horse racing.
- Albertans can still bet on horse racing through racetracks, off-track betting locations, and HPIbet, while industry leaders continue working toward adding the sport to regulated online sportsbooks.
- Alberta's horse racing industry hopes to follow Ontario's model of integrating racing into sportsbook platforms, but no agreements are expected in time for the market's launch.
Why exactly this will be the case is due to the laws of legalized gambling in Canada, and the permissions needed to offer pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing. Fixed-odds wagering on horse racing is not legal in Canada.
Nevertheless, the short version for Albertans is this: On Monday, you’ll be able to legally bet on lots of stuff in lots of places, but to legally bet on horse racing you’ll only have the same familiar places to which you can turn.
That day, July 13, is when the province’s new regulated market for online sports betting and internet casino gambling will go live. There are around 50 apps and sites on deck to launch within that new regulatory framework, in addition to the province’s already authorized iGaming platform, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s (AGLC) Play Alberta.
What that means is bettors will have a lot of choice when it comes to where they want to wager on stick-and-ball sports and other athletic events. But, because all of these sportsbooks will be subject to Alberta’s rules and Canadian law, there is still work that needs to be done before they can carry horse racing.
“Unfortunately, when [Alberta’s iGaming market] rolls out on July 13, we're not going to be on any platform,” said Paul Ryneveld, director of business development and racing support for Horse Racing Alberta, in a recent interview with Covers.
Horse Racing Alberta (HRA) is a private not-for-profit corporation that was established by the provincial government to help promote and regulate the sport in the province.
Ryneveld says the HRA has been having discussions for months with track operators, the Alberta government, and others, but it hasn’t yet translated into horse racing being offered via the regulated Alberta sports betting market.
“We're just in this holding pattern,” Ryneveld said.
That doesn’t mean there will be no way at all to bet on horse racing in Alberta, which has six horse racing tracks (Standardbred and Thoroughbred) as well as a pretty equine-inclined population.
Play Alberta even offers betting markets for certain Calgary Stampede events, such as the nightly chuckwagon horse races watched by thousands and broadcast on Sportsnet.
Going to the rodeo tonight so please send me any chuckwagon plays if you've got 'em. pic.twitter.com/gtVT2i9bFq
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 5, 2026
So you can still go to the track to bet, you can still go to an off-track betting facility, and you can still use Woodbine Entertainment Group’s HPIbet. You just won’t be able to log into, say, DraftKings and start betting on Saratoga on Monday.
That’s the short version for Alberta bettors: When you log into a provincially regulated sportsbook on Monday, July 13, there’s not gonna be horse racing there to bet on as well. It’s in the works and might be there eventually, but not on Day 1 of Alberta’s new regulated market for online sports betting and iCasino.
And now …
The long version
If you’ve stuck around this long, you probably want more explanation. So here’s a longer one.
In Canada, the Criminal Code lays out what gambling is legally allowed. It’s under the Criminal Code, for example, that provinces can “conduct and manage a lottery scheme.”
The term “lottery scheme” here more or less covers the online sports betting and iCasino that is and will be on offer in Alberta. And it was in 2021 that federal lawmakers tweaked the code to permit provinces to offer single-game sports betting.
However, a little further down the Criminal Code, the law says that a lottery scheme does not include "bookmaking, pool selling or the making or recording of bets … on any horse-race."
So, you might then ask, well, how do we have betting on horse racing at all in Canada? And then, if you scroll back up in the Criminal Code, you’ll see provisions that permit pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing with the permission of the federal government. That is the pooled style of wagering, where all the bets on a race go into a pot and the winnings are distributed from there.
Put differently, provinces (like Alberta) can’t just wave their hand and allow anyone to take bets on a horse race. You’ve got to have the federal government involved, and the feds only permit certain people to facilitate that wagering.
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Mr. Fixit
Now, it’s possible to figure out a solution to these legal hurdles.
A similar situation played out in Ontario, which launched its own competitive market for iGaming in 2022. A lot of people had been using “grey” market sportsbooks that had carried horse racing, and then some of those sites moved into the regulated market and dropped the sport from their menu.
That left horseplayers who had been using the grey books scrambling. They could turn to Woodbine’s HPIbet, but there was no provincially regulated sportsbook offering horse racing.
Woodbine, however, has been working to fix this.
The Toronto-based track operator has struck partnerships with bet365 and the government-owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. to add horse racing to their online gambling platforms.
We’re starting to get into some technical territory here, but, for example, if you log into bet365, you can bet on horse racing via the licensing and technology of Woodbine. Indeed, when you're on bet365, and you go to the horse racing tab, it will say "operated by Woodbine Entertainment Group."
So, sportsbook up front and Woodbine in the back. Similar fixes could be developed and implemented in Alberta. They just aren’t in place yet, and won’t be for July 13.
We got news of the new Woodbine-OLG pari-mutuel wagering partnership earlier this week, but dove deeper into the subject here:
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) August 14, 2025
Woodbine Offers Fix for Ontario's Horse Racing-Hungry Sportsbooks https://t.co/ETuqTFlieW @Covers
A spokesperson for Woodbine told Covers on Friday that there “are currently no plans for racing to be offered through any fixed odds platforms in Alberta as part of their pending launch” of regulated iGaming.
“Woodbine is open to offering its white-label interface to sportsbooks and the AGLC in partnership with the Alberta [home market area] owners,” said Jamie Dykstra, Woodbine’s vice president of communications, in an email. “We’ve had discussions, but nothing is imminent.”
That means that, one more time, horseplayers will have to use HPIbet to bet on Monday, or they’ll have to head to a track or an OTB. There are also some Xpressbet account holders in the province.
Let us in
Which brings us back to where the horse racing industry in Alberta would like to be, which is in the thick of the action. Horse racing runs on betting, and if more people have access to betting on horse racing, that’s financially good for the industry.
In Ontario, two of the biggest online sportsbooks have horse racing. In addition to that, bet365 is a big sponsor of the racing going on at Woodbine. Alberta’s horse racing industry would probably like something similar.
Moreover, Alberta’s horse racing sector is not receiving any dedicated financial support from Alberta’s iGaming scheme. The province is keeping 20% of the online gambling revenue generated by its operators, but that is also after setting aside 2% of all gross revenue for First Nations and 1% for responsible and problem gambling initiatives. Horse racing is not receiving any of that tax money.
Day seven is here! Bet on the Calgary Stampede Rodeo and Rangeland Derby Chuckwagon Races presented by @PlayAlbertaCA exclusively at https://t.co/Bzji3aQNao - the only site for Stampede betting. Easy, secure and 100% Albertan!@CS_Rodeo pic.twitter.com/s9RZaaIfUP
— Calgary Stampede (@calgarystampede) July 9, 2026
All of the above, then, has caused some concern for Alberta’s horse racing industry. However, the sector does still receive money from slot machine revenue at tracks.
Moreover, the competition they currently face for online betting dollars includes the so-called “grey” market operators that may be regulated abroad or outside the province, but not by the province itself. Some of those operators have been offering fixed-odds wagering on horse racing, and now they are about to join a regulated market where that can’t be offered.
“There's some caution, but some of these providers were already operating grey in Alberta,” Ryneveld said. “It will have an effect of some sort, but it's hard to gauge what that's going to be.”
Ryneveld added that horse racing-related wagering in Alberta this year is “trending a little bit better than last year, which was a little bit better than the year before.”
But now into the fray will come a small army of private-sector online sports betting and casino gaming sites. The HRA believes these operators could be a help to the province’s horse racing industry, but the industry first needs to get horse racing on those platforms.
“The horse racing industry wants to be a participant in the iGaming platforms, and we’ve got to work toward that,” Ryneveld said. “People with the propensity to gamble, there's no reason why you can't get them to also play horses.”
