Canada’s highest court spent a few hours Wednesday hearing arguments, asking questions, and absorbing answers about Ontario’s proposal to let its online gamblers play and bet with counterparts outside the country.
The Supreme Court of Canada has yet to rule on the matter, now known as Atlantic Lottery Corporation, et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner said the judges would take the case under advisement.
- Canada’s Supreme Court is considering whether Ontario can let players on its regulated gambling sites compete against gamblers in other countries.
- The case hinges on whether Ontario’s plan complies with the Criminal Code’s requirement that provinces “conduct and manage” gambling within their borders.
- A ruling for Ontario could expand online poker and other iGaming offerings, while a ruling against it could limit the province’s efforts to grow its regulated market.
The eventual ruling could significantly affect online gambling in Canada.
That, at least, is the concern of Ontario's de facto opposition in the case: a group of government-owned lottery corporations from the Atlantic provinces, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec.
“This court should not approve a dramatic expansion of online gaming to encompass foreign gamblers based on handwaving about how it's going to happen in practice,” said Matthew Milne-Smith, a lawyer for those lotteries, near the end of the hearing.
How “dramatic” this expansion could get depends on what the Supreme Court decides and what the Ontario government agrees to do internally and internationally.
Canada’s most populous province is proposing to bolster its regulated online gambling market by allowing players to participate in games with people in other countries. This, Ontario argues, could help in channelling more online gambling activity in the province onto provincially regulated apps and sites.
Under the proposal, Ontario would “conduct and manage” the gambling only for the Ontario players participating in the games. Players in other countries would be subject to their local regulations, although Ontario says those rules would need to meet standards acceptable to the province.
There is an important Supreme Court hearing involving gambling tomorrow! In Canada. Yes, Canada's highest court will be hearing arguments on Wednesday about the legality of letting provincial gamblers participate in "peer-to-peer" games like poker and DFS with rivals abroad: https://t.co/KzvVj5DLh0
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) October 6, 2026
Ontario argues this would all get hammered out via contracts and agreements, similar to how some European countries pool online poker liquidity.
“At the end of the day, you are only participating in a scheme conducted by Ontario in Ontario,” said Joshua Hunter, a lawyer for the Attorney General of Ontario.
Word salad bar
The word “conduct” is key. Canada’s Criminal Code allows a provincial government “to conduct and manage a lottery scheme in that province.”
The words “in that province” are pretty important as well. The Supreme Court must decide whether Ontario can limit its role to conducting and managing the Ontario side of a system that connects its players with gamblers in other countries.
Justice Malcolm Rowe pushed back on Ontario’s framing during the hearing, calling it a “word salad.”
“You're saying, in effect, you're controlling it through contractual means, but that doesn't mean manage and conduct within the meaning of the act,” Rowe said. “I mean, it's playing with words.”
Ontario’s proposal was good enough to clear the province’s own Court of Appeal, to which the provincial government had referred a question about the legality of connecting its online gamblers with international ones.
The decision last November was appealed by the lottery group to the Supreme Court of Canada, which led to Wednesday’s hearing.
The hearing saw many other questions being asked as well, including about a party that is noticeably absent from Ontario’s iGaming reference: the federal government.
“I'm struck by the fact that this is a criminal provision, and the Attorney General of Canada isn't here to say this is contrary to our public policy,” Justice Mahmud Jamal said.
Later in the hearing, another lawyer for the lotteries, Chanakya Sethi, said, “The principal opposition here is one set of provinces and another set of provinces, and it's not surprising that the federal government might be neutral in that dispute.”
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Well, that's a new one
Wednesday’s hearing was a relatively novel one. Ontario is just one of two provinces that permits multiple private-sector online gambling operators and the only province looking for additional iGaming liquidity abroad.
If Ontario gets a “yes, that’s legal” from the court, it could bolster its online poker scene, provide a path for provincially regulated daily fantasy contests, and perhaps usher in other iGaming-related innovations. It would also forge a path for other provinces to follow, if they so choose.
If the court answers “no,” it could make Ontario’s quest to conquer “unregulated” online gambling more challenging. It could also prompt the province to seek other solutions, such as partnerships with other provinces.
The roots of the case stretch back to 2022 when Ontario launched a competitive market for online gambling. One of the goals of that market was to move gambling from “unregulated, grey-market websites” to provincially regulated ones.
There are now approximately 50 private-sector operators of sports betting and casino gambling sites in that market, which has succeeded in capturing most of Ontario’s online gambling activity. Recent research suggests that more than 90% of Ontario's online gamblers are choosing to use provincially regulated sites, compared to the estimated 30% market share back in 2021.
That still leaves 10% of online gambling happening with websites that may be regulated abroad or outside of Ontario but not by Ontario itself.
While the FSGA welcomes the regulation of single-event sports wagering in Ontario, the regulations have unfortunately made operating paid fantasy sports contests in the province impossible for almost every operator. Read the release: https://t.co/fSWc7c3YGI
— FSGA (@FSGAtweets) March 28, 2022
Ontario’s authorized online gambling sites, which sign contracts with Crown agency iGaming Ontario, also have limits on how they can conduct business. One rule requires all players to be physically located in the province. This capped the size of online poker games and pay-to-play daily fantasy contests, with the latter product not offered at all within Ontario's market.
So the Ontario government turned to the Court of Appeal in 2024 to determine if it was legal to allow Ontarians "to participate in games and betting" with people based outside of Canada.
Peer-to-peer pressure
The province’s proposal is for players in Ontario to participate in “peer-to-peer games” with gamblers outside of Canada. Ontario bettors would access those games through provincially regulated sites, while their international counterparts would join through their local sites.
Canadian players in provinces other than Ontario would not be allowed to join unless their province and Ontario agree.
“Ontario believes that offering this type of international play through iGaming Ontario’s safe, regulated platform will divert the significant number of people in the province who continue to use unlawful gaming websites to iGaming, protecting them from fraud, addiction, and the other harms associated with unlawful gambling while generating additional revenue for the public purse,” the Attorney General of Ontario's factum to the Supreme Court said.
Last November, four of the five judges hearing the reference concluded that this model would be legal. The coalition of government-owned lottery corporations then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The lotteries argued in their factum that Ontario's proposed scheme “flouts” Canada's Criminal Code and should be shot down by the Supreme Court.
One major issue the lotteries have with Ontario's plan is that it will allegedly “permit the Ontario government to launch online lottery schemes in collaboration with international operators, many of which currently operate illegally throughout the rest of Canada.”
Indeed, the lotteries have alleged that private-sector gambling operators are using their licensed platforms in Ontario as “springboards” to promote illegal international sites to Canadians in other provinces. So while Ontario has said Canadians outside Ontario would be barred from playing in its pooled games, the lottery coalition is doubtful.
First hit on today's big news for Ontario DFS. In short, it looks like a win for those who want DFS back in the province. And while a win's a win, there's still a dissenting judge and the possibility of further appeal. More to come. https://t.co/CupbMHWwyK @Covers
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) November 12, 2025
Ontario has argued that a court reference such as its iGaming one “is not a fact-finding exercise,” and that the court must stick to the question the province asked and the facts provided.
'Not our business'
A lawyer for Ontario’s attorney general said Wednesday that iGaming Ontario has directed all of the sites it is responsible for to stop redirecting other Canadians to international sites.
“But what's fundamental is that those issues have nothing to do with the proposed model we've set forward,” Ananthan Sinnadurai said.
At any rate, and in the eyes of at least one Supreme Court justice, the entire issue of illegal operators sounded less concerning than properly interpreting the Criminal Code as it pertains to what Ontario proposes.
“I'm here to figure out what this statute says is legally permissible,” Justice Rowe told the Ontario side. “Your client may be encroaching on what your friend's client thinks is his territory. That's not our business.”
