The Ontario government is about to look under the hood of legalized gambling, launching a review that will try to ensure online sports betting, iGaming, and brick-and-mortar casino play are delivering the goods for Canada’s most populous province.
- Ontario’s gaming minister announced a review of the province’s gaming sector.
- The review will look for ways to “enhance efficiency” and cut red tape for industry, hopefully driving more economic benefits for the province.
- The review will also examine both online and in-person gambling in Ontario, leaving open the possibility of reform for Ontario’s competitive iGaming market.
- Ontario gaming sector expected to generate more than $10 billion in revenue this year.
Ontario’s minister of tourism, culture, and gaming, Stan Cho, announced the review Thursday at the Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto.
Back at the Canadian Gaming Summit this morning, and Ontario's gaming minister, @StanChoMPP, just announced a sweeping review of the province's online and brick-and-mortar gambling sector. Looking for efficiencies and opportunities to reduce red tape.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) June 19, 2025
“The review will assess opportunities to enhance efficiency and reduce red tape across both our online and land-based markets,” Cho said. “The ultimate goal is to ensure the whole gaming sector delivers strong economic outputs for Ontarians.”
The review and any changes made as a result “are not going to be a bunch of politicians sitting in a room thinking what's best for the industry,” Cho added.
“We are going to listen to the experts,” Cho said. “We are going to listen to what affects you as the operators. We're going to listen to the pros, and I want to make that very clear from the beginning.”
Cho’s comments suggest that Ontario could make some tweaks to its competitive iGaming market, which launched in 2022 and now has 50 private-sector operators offering online sports betting, casino games, poker, and bingo.
That is in addition to the online gambling offered by the government-owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which also conducts and manages in-person casino gambling in the province with the help of private-sector operators.
Doing better for bettors
The province's competitive iGaming market has been successful in channelling roughly 80% of all Ontario sports betting and iGaming onto provincially regulated apps and sites.
Ontario lawmakers and regulators have not forgotten about the 20% or so of unregulated play either, and are taking steps to chase those operators out of the province.
While Ontario is a “pioneer” in iGaming, having been the first province in Canada to launch a market with multiple private-sector operators participating (with Alberta planning to follow suit early next year), there are “opportunities to improve,” Cho said.
The minister gave as an example a self-exclusion system that communicates between land-based and online operators. A centralized self-exclusion system for all of Ontario’s iGaming sites is still being worked on as well.
(Furthermore, although Cho did not mention it, Ontario's Court of Appeal is preparing on a decision that could make it possible for gamblers in the province to play poker or daily fantasy against rivals outside of Canada.)
A healthy breakup
Ontario also took the recent step of separating iGaming Ontario (iGO), which contracts with private-sector operators, from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, the province’s gambling regulator.
Initially a subsidiary of the AGCO, iGO is now a standalone agency under Cho’s ministry.
“I think the market is just starting to sort of get comfortable with iGaming and understanding how that balances with land-based gaming,” Cho said. “So I think we have to monitor that carefully. That's why those two agencies need to be close to each other, but also need to be separate and autonomous to make sure that they adapt and mold to those changes together but are also close enough that we have the ability to move quickly and be adaptable.”
Cho told the audience at CGS that to call Ontario's gaming sector booming "would be a massive understatement," and that they expect the industry will generate more than $10 billion in revenue this year for the first time.
Of that, iGaming Ontario, the provincial agency that facilitates the private-sector market, will account for an estimated $3.7 billion of revenue, Cho said.
“As a complement to our well-established land-based and lottery market, our government recognizes the incredible potential of online gaming, and we also recognize that the gaming industry online will continue to evolve and progress in significant ways in the years ahead,” Cho said.
