On July 14, 2025, Steve had a special meeting to attend. “Seven o’clock is my friend’s 28 years off gambling,” he says. There would be cake and coffee, and Gamblers Anonymous members who normally attended other meetings around Calgary would converge to show support and celebrate the milestone.
As for Steve, it’s been 26 years since he first visited a GA meeting. Now 47, his relationship with recovery has been off and on. “I probably have 20 years of clean time combined,” he says. Roughly 180,000 Albertans, according to the Canadian Community Health Survey, have or are at risk for gambling problems.
Growing up in south Calgary, Steve bet on childhood marble or pool games, taken in by the highs of winning. By 17 he was sneaking into the Elbow River Casino. “I just couldn’t wait until I was 18,” he says. As Steve matured into adulthood, gambling took over his life. His debts became too high to keep his addiction secret. He lost a marriage “after being given 100 chances.” Family members started getting calls from banks and other lenders demanding Steve repay the money.
In 1999, when Steve attended his first GA meeting, Alberta’s gambling landscape grounded itself in the physical realm. There were casinos—his preferred type of play—as well as video lottery terminals (VLTs), bingo, scratch tickets and lotto and Sport Select slips to fill in with a pencil. With only half of Canadians using the internet as the millennium dawned, everything online was in its infancy. This included gambling.
Then “grey-market” gambling websites started to appear online. Registered in such far-flung places as the Caribbean or the Isle of Man, they were illegal and unregulated in Canada. The players logging on didn’t know or care. A Canada West Foundation report proposed that the problem was best ignored. “It is not clear that a reasonable market for internet-based gambling in Canada exists, nor is it clear that such a market could be created,” wrote Robin Kelley, Peter Todosichuk and Jason Azmier in 2001. The authors argued that in trying to capture these players, governments might just create wider problems.
The grey market grew, however, as internet adoption increased and the number of websites expanded. Eventually people began gambling through browsers and apps on their smartphones and tablets. Provinces decided the market was a threat, and responded by launching their own legal, publicly owned online casinos, including, in 2020, Play Alberta. Gambling activity spread further with the legalization of single-sport betting nationwide in 2021.
The following year, Ontario started regulating the online private-casino—dubbed iGaming—industry. This officially enabled online casinos, including those previously operating outside Ontario law, to be licensed by the province. In exchange they would pay a cut of their revenues to the provincial government. Ontario now has some 50 operators, which run 87 websites.
In a few short years iGaming has become a huge industry in Ontario. More than two million user accounts have been opened, of which one million are active. Gambling has contributed more than $1.6-billion to Ontario government coffers. The government of Alberta has taken notice. They want in on the action. Albertans have already been seeing ads for gambling apps and websites (e.g., on Hockey Night in Canada) that they can’t actually use, at least legally.
As the second mover in Canadian iGaming, Alberta could learn from—or ignore—Ontario’s lessons. Though our government has said Alberta will “massage” Ontario’s blueprint, provinces often simply copy policies. Alberta will also help set the stage for provinces that follow suit. This province’s approach could even shape the gambling industry abroad. But whether Wild Rose Country will put a good system in place depends on who you ask.
In June 2024 the Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, Dale Nally, took the stage at the Canadian Gaming Summit in front of a large photo of himself to talk about “Betting on the Alberta Advantage.” Hair slicked back, Nally introduced himself not by his actual title but as the province’s “Minister of Fun.” He noted Ontario’s “success” with iGaming, and said Alberta wanted to follow in its footsteps. He said Albertans watching sports see ads for things they love, like beer, trucks and gambling. “But there’s something we don’t like about the ads,” he said, in a recording shared with AV by a journalist in attendance. It was the disclaimer that says “Ontario only.” “So we’ve got to change that.” Nally told the gambling company representatives in the audience to come find him later, to pitch, because Alberta would soon be open for business.
Consultations followed with stakeholders, including First Nations and other land-based casino operators in Alberta. In the legislature, MLAs debated how Alberta would soon usher in a new era of gambling. Amendments to proposed legislation—including player-protection measures such as gambling education, advertising limits and financial outlays for harm reduction—were defeated. And then, in May 2025, the iGaming Alberta Act was passed. The floodgates are expected to officially open in 2026.
Minister Dale Nally noted Ontario’s “success” with online gambling, and said Alberta wants to follow in its footsteps.
What awaits Albertans is an experiment. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the UK have versions of iGaming marketplaces. But in North America the iGaming industry is still in its infancy. Besides Ontario, iGaming marketplaces exist in only seven US states. Online sports betting is more widespread, both across Canada and, according to the American Gaming Association, in 34 US states. Though quick to tout benefits—namely revenue—governments like Ontario’s are also facing consequences, including more gambling addiction and growing concerns over advertising, such as its effects on children and youth.
Steve is already hearing about these concerns in GA meetings, with the biggest change in recent years being how people gamble. Older people are still using casinos and VLTs, he says. “But the younger people coming in now are mostly online gamblers.”
Nally isn’t hearing as many reservations. The people he talks to want us to be like Ontario. “Albertans have said ‘Why don’t you do the same here?’” Nally told CBC in a 2025 interview about iGaming. “Why don’t you put in place safety measures? Why don’t you stop the money from leaving the province, and keep some of it in Alberta?”
Putting aside the open question of how many people expressed such preferences to Nally, or what their interests are, governments have traditionally let revenue potential, not consumer input, drive gambling expansion.
The founding father of gambling economics, the late William Eadington, was skeptical of online gambling’s role in public revenue generation, because he felt more taxes could be collected from physical venues such as casinos.
Though the online market is bigger for operators—by virtue of its 24/7, borderless, portable access—governments don’t earn the same spoils. While the Ontario government takes over 80 per cent of the revenues from land-based casinos and VLTs, it takes only 20 per cent of online iGaming revenues.
Ontario’s iGaming private companies have collectively taken more than $7.6-billion in just over three years, five times the online gambling revenue the provincial government has collected. Publicly owned online casinos in Alberta and Ontario don’t have partners to split revenues with, meaning the government keeps it all. The Edmonton international airport currently keeps 15 per cent of gross gaming revenue from its VLTs, while 85 per cent is returned to government coffers. Alberta charitable casinos are currently taxed at 83 per cent of net revenue. But Alberta’s online iGaming casinos are likely to be taxed at only 20 per cent, as in Ontario.
In short, the province will receive a much smaller cut from each dollar spent in a new iGaming regime than it is used to receiving from other forms of gambling.
The Alberta government downplays the possibility of iGaming cannibalizing higher-taxed land-based gaming. When launching Play Alberta, it said this wouldn’t happen, due to the province’s focus on targeting grey-market gamblers. Nonetheless, it’s very likely. A consultant’s report commissioned by casino operator Great Canadian Entertainment suggested Ontario casinos could lose about $550-million annually from gamblers flocking instead to iGaming. And indeed Ontario casino revenues fell below target in fiscal 2023–24 by almost that very amount. For the government to avoid taking a financial hit, then, Alberta’s gamblers will need to lose more money—or more Albertans will need to start gambling.
Land-based gambling creates economic spinoffs through casinos and VLT venues. These include job creation and additional tax revenues from food and beverages, payroll and property. Ontario is losing these “silver linings” of gambling. When Play Alberta launched, its potential impact on casino revenues was enough for the Tsuut’ina and Stoney Nakoda First Nations to file a lawsuit citing potentially unfair competition.
When William Eadington wrote about online gambling earlier this century, the massive global industry we live with today was, in some respects, unfathomable. But now professional sports leagues have given up their long fight against betting potentially corrupting the sanctity of their games. Governments have permitted marketing on a grand scale with few restrictions, as in Ontario. And they have succumbed to the temptation to steer away from more-profitable gambling options for a smaller share of a larger pie.
In part, this is due to the spectre of grey-market gambling, which drives a narrative known in gambling research as overcoming “regulatory resistance.” Gambling proponents invoke the perils of the grey market (or illegal black market) to wear down and defeat resistance to legalizing gambling. According to a 2021 paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, concerns include loss of consumer freedom, lower economic growth, and lack of safety.
Governments and consultants suggest that vast sums of money are currently being gambled away in unregulated markets. In 2020, as Play Alberta was being launched, Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) suggested Albertans were gambling away $378-million on the unregulated market.
Minister Nally, who didn’t respond to an interview request, spoke of the shadow side of the industry disdainfully in the legislature. “There are two parts that really are quite offensive,” he said. “One is that the money is not just leaving Alberta; it’s leaving the country for offshore destinations. So we don’t see a penny of that. And some of these operators are repugnant.”
Switching gamblers from unregulated to regulated gambling is called “channelization.” Some industry observers consider even 80 per cent to be a low goal. Ontario, which according to an Ipsos poll sees 86.4 per cent of its gamblers use the province’s regulated iGaming market, is chasing a 90 per cent channelization rate.
Unsurprisingly, channelization rates run lower in jurisdictions such as Alberta that have a single, publicly owned online casino rather than dozens of privately run websites that court the public with incentives to gamble and try to outmarket each other. In 2023–24 (the most recent annual report available), Albertans placed $5.3-billion in bets across all games on Play Alberta. That’s a 20.8 per cent increase over the previous year. After prize payouts and expenses, this netted the government $235-million. Prior to the 2020 launch, the province didn’t earn one cent from regulated online gambling.
The amount by which iGaming could expand Alberta’s regulated market is debated. Analysts project the new market could reach $1-billion to $1.25-billion at maturity. With 20 per cent of gross gaming revenue going to the provincial general fund—the same rate Ontario takes from iGaming partners—at least $200-million could be expected annually. Meanwhile $200-million is equivalent to only 0.25 per cent of the province’s projected 2025–26 total expenses.
For Alberta to avoid taking a financial hit, gamblers will need to lose more money—or more Albertans will need to start gambling.
So, is it worth it to allow all this online gaming? Carrie Shaw, an Alberta Gaming Research Institute (AGRI) research chair at the University of Alberta, says she’s skeptical of revenue projections, because how much will get captured is calculated differently depending on who’s crunching the numbers. “I don’t know that the rationale for opening the market in Alberta is as evidence-based as it could be,” she says.
Take, for example, that no foolproof way exists to estimate the market size of Albertans wagering on grey-market sites. Often activity like this is measured through user surveys or web-traffic patterns, not spending data. Other information, such as the number of player accounts at a given online casino, is proprietary. Estimates vary too widely to tell a definitive story.
Though the province officially claims that Play Alberta has captured 45 per cent of the local online gambling market, data shared with the industry magazine Canadian Gaming Business by H2 Gambling Capital suggests the number is closer to “28 per cent of non-lottery gaming.” (H2 didn’t respond to an interview request.) A survey of online gamblers by Ipsos and the Canadian Gaming Association, an industry trade group, reported that only 22.7 per cent wager on Play Alberta. And of those players, just over half also gambled on grey-market sites.
If one assumes Play Alberta currently has 45 per cent of the market, with its 434,000 registered player accounts, the remaining 55 per cent of the market wouldn’t constitute 530,445 grey market accounts. Although Play Alberta permits only one account per individual, verified using government ID, players can sign up for accounts with multiple online gambling operators in iGaming or grey markets.
David Forrest, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Liverpool, says the average from UK Gambling Commission surveys is two accounts. But academic reviews of problem-gambling screenings suggest the number can actually be six or seven per gambler. Taking this into consideration can dramatically reduce the potential market size of iGaming in Alberta by several magnitudes. It can also distort channelization rates by making them appear higher by measuring total accounts rather than total players.
Forrest adds that attempts to survey gamblers on money spent are also challenging. Estimates range widely due to issues with self-reporting, including lack of recall or stating the amount wagered or the amount lost interchangeably.
Besides issues around the actual revenue potential of iGaming, Shaw at AGRI says other unintended consequences aren’t being properly reviewed. Online gambling, she notes, is inherently riskier than the in-person kind. Yet Canada already has insufficient public data on the consequences of gambling, whether detailed addiction rates, the number of calls to gambling helplines or the magnitude of harms such as gambling-related bankruptcies, domestic violence or suicides.
In 2018 Statistics Canada estimated 2.9 per cent of Ontarians have gambling problems or are at some level of risk for them. In December 2024 a Pollara report for Mental Health Research Canada put that number at a whopping 22 per cent. The Ontario Problem Gambling Helpline says it’s seeing a spike in calls. The scraps of evidence so far, wrote four Ontario psychologists for The Conversation in January 2025, “suggest a notable rise in problem gambling since [iGaming’s] introduction.”
Facing public criticism, Ontario banned celebrities from appearing in ads to promote iGaming—unless they’re promoting “responsible gaming.” It’s unknown whether this is having the intended effect. “We don’t have any evidence to suggest it’s having [an] impact,” Shaw says. And we know little about the long-term effects of online gambling ads on children and youth.
The biggest criticism so far, however, is that Alberta is moving ahead with the industry before crafting many of the rules and regulations.
Other than a plan for centralized self-exclusion that will enable patrons to ban themselves from all iGaming casinos at once—a feature Ontario still lacks—few specifics are yet known about Alberta’s iGaming market. Nally has said he believes responsible gambling should be a regulatory issue, not written into law. That way, he told the legislature, changes can be made “on a dime” as required by the market rather than requiring a legislative process.
That isn’t good enough for experts on gambling activity and addiction. “I think the onus is on the provider and the regulators to actually partner with [arm’s length] researchers,” Shaw says. Though researchers at the AGRI have a good working relationship with the provincial regulator, Shaw adds, the institute hasn’t been asked to perform independent research in the lead-up to Alberta opening its iGaming market.
It’s also critical to address a less tangible query: Will the consumer protections offered as part of an Alberta iGaming industry outweigh the negative consequences for the public writ large? When discussing why an iGaming industry even needs to be created here, the provincial government publicly defaults to messages related to safety and responsible gambling. “Our goal is not to create new gamblers but to make existing online gambling safer,” Nally has said.
Brady Simpson, a University of Calgary doctoral candidate who studies gambling marketing, finds this messaging baffling. “What do you think is going to happen when these massive—in some cases multibillion-dollar—[companies] are able to inject their marketing dollars into Alberta? The whole point is new-customer acquisition and then retention of those people.”
Simpson adds that such a permissive approach isn’t being taken with tobacco, alcohol or cannabis. Gambling too has health and addiction risks. Tobacco, alcohol and cannabis typically aren’t as close by as one’s phone, with its new, enticing, soon-to-be-legal gambling apps. At a minimum, says Simpson, “We should have limitations on marketing and accessibility.” Instead, the industry is “about to open the floodgates.”
What is happening now with iGaming in Alberta is familiar. It’s the same process every time Alberta expands its gambling options. The same questions, the same concerns, the same alleged drive to stamp out illegal activity, the same push to expand industry, the same lack of digging into how previous gambling expansion has affected people. It has happened before, here and across the country, and history is repeating itself.
Lobbyists are already pushing for an iGaming market in BC, but at present the government there says it isn’t interested. The Quebec Online Gaming Coalition—which includes member companies Bet99, Draft Kings and Flutter—has been lobbying for an iGaming market in that province since May 2023.
Yet this could be a moment to steer away from the old narratives and rationales that turned legalized gambling into a massive business.
When Nally spoke to industry insiders, he told them Albertans love to gamble. But the “Minister of Fun” also told the legislature: “I want to be perfectly clear: if you don’t gamble today, please don’t start tomorrow. That is not the purpose of this.” Meanwhile his government is projecting that Alberta’s gambling industry will grow. If this isn’t a mixed message, what is?
Steve has been in recovery since 2019, and he is determined to make it stick. “There’s a difference between abstinence and recovery,” he says. Previously he only focused on abstinence from gambling, which he saw as time off. Now he’s actively in recovery, which for him involves following a 12-step program and doing service work, including as an executive with Southern Alberta Gamblers Anonymous. He knows what will happen if he veers off course. “I won’t stop until I lose all my money. I’m going to be a liar. I’m going to be a thief,” he says. “I might as well say bye-bye to my family and my friends and my work.”
One thing he is confident about with Alberta’s new iGaming regime is that it won’t unleash a flood of new people with gambling addiction into his meetings. But not because they won’t exist. “There are thousands and thousands of compulsive gamblers in Calgary,” he says. “Yet every night we have a meeting, maybe 15 to 20 of us are in the room.”
Journalist Rob Csernyik has a forthcoming book from Sutherland House on gambling-related suicides in Canada.
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Read More: Who Wants Albertan’s to Gamble More?
