What Alberta’s New “Open” Gaming Market Means for Canada

From the outside looking in, the complexities of Canada's regional gambling regulations - particularly those of iGaming - appear purposefully confusing. Step from one province into another and an assortment of individual government-run monopolies dominate the landscape, with Ontario as the lone outlier… until now.

That's because as of July 2026, Alberta too has joined the fold, building on Ontario's 2022 iGaming playbook of opening the market up to private licensees. While Ontario stumbled its way through countless teething problems, Alberta is looking to correct the mistakes of the past to streamline its own tailor-made legislation more focused on player protections.

Fresh from Alberta's iGaming overhaul, Bodog reveals the key stakeholders involved in the province's new approach, what it means for iGaming enthusiasts, and why anticipation levels across Canada may have just gone up a notch.

What Exactly Did Alberta Lawmakers Change?

First of all, for those of you less familiar with the Wild Rose Country’s regulations, up until recently, online gambling in Alberta was a rather straightforward affair, albeit from a punter’s perspective, somewhat limiting.

Essentially, if you wanted to bet legally in the province, your primary outlet was PlayAlberta, the province's own gambling platform that offered options including sports betting and casino games, sans any competitive alternatives. As a result, Albertans had to either like it or lump it, as the products, odds, and bonuses on offer were all punters had to choose from.

No surprise then that Alberta's ripping up of the rulebook has gained so much media attention, becoming only the second province behind Ontario to loosen its government-run monopoly. In pivoting away from a one-operator structure, Alberta's lawmakers have consented to licensed private sportsbooks and online casinos operating alongside PlayAlberta to establish a competitive, and player-focused, iGaming market.

In layman's terms, increased vendor competition in Alberta now paves the way for punters to seek out better odds, bigger game libraries, and far more attractive promotions.

Who Regulates and Manages the Alberta Market?

Nonetheless, rather than just flinging the doors open as a free-for-all, the province is using Ontario's original iGaming blueprint to also ensure its regulatory system is designed to keep Alberta's players safe. In fact, every operator being granted a license will have to meet its strict provincial standards way before it's allowed anywhere near its residents. 

Charged with this new objective, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) will essentially oversee the sector’s rules and licensing agreements, and enforce its regulatory standards, allowing it to investigate any breaches. Meanwhile, the Alberta iGaming Corporation (AiGC) will actually manage the competitive market itself, which it will do through commercial agreements with all of its licensed operators.

For PlayAlberta, it may still hold an edge given its familiarity as the only platform Albertans have been used to up until now, but it's safe to assume the attractive offers and promotions available from new licensees will soon siphon off a large proportion of its user base.

However, in terms of the law itself, the conditions of play will remain the same for all users. These being that all players will need to provide ID to prove they are at least 18 years old, while geolocation technology will also ensure every wager is placed while physically inside Alberta.

Likewise, for the current 22 private operators, including DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM, license requirements mean gambling safeguarding tools like user deposit limits, self-exclusion programs, regulated advertising, and secure payment systems are all mandatory stipulations.

So Just How Did Canada Get Here?

You only have to go back a few years to understand why Alberta’s legislative U-turn is garnering so much attention - particularly when it comes to sports betting. 

Back in the day, Canadians could still technically bet on sports, but only through parlays, which required punters to predict multiple outcomes correctly to have any chance of winning. Wagering on a single NHL game or NFL matchup, for example, simply wasn’t permitted through its existing legal provincial sportsbooks.

That all changed in 2021, when Canada passed Bill C-218, legalizing single-event sports betting and giving each province the authority to determine its own gambling policies. While Ontario was first out of the blocks, launching its competitive regulated market in 2022, Alberta took four more years to define its own regulatory framework, while the rest continue to sit on the sidelines debating whether to take the plunge or not.

As The Only Two Players In The Game, How Does Alberta Compare With Ontario?

In some respects, Ontario was Canada's first gambling experiment, with Alberta becoming the sequel.

Firstly, similar to Ontario, Alberta created a fully competitive private-operator marketplace with a dedicated market manager and regulator - AiGC and AGLC in Alberta, compared with iGO and AGCO in Ontario - with the purpose of implementing regulations to steer players away from the illicit offshore platforms.

However, Alberta's starting point was strikingly different from Ontario's. 

Alberta did so having witnessed the scrutiny provincial policymakers faced early on with regard to problematic advertising and poor responsible gambling measures. With that in mind, Alberta launched its iGaming sector with centralized self-exclusion measures, mandatory RG Check certifications, far stricter advertising rules, and enforced limits involving any athlete or celebrity endorsements.

What Does Gambling Look Like Across the Rest of Canada?

Five years on from Canada amending its archaic gambling laws, Alberta and Ontario are now the only provinces to have opened their markets up to private operators, with the majority electing to continue running their own gambling websites instead. 

For instance, whereas British Columbia and Manitoba use the PlayNow platform, Saskatchewan has adapted and tweaked its own version, calling it PlayNow Saskatchewan. Meanwhile, Quebec has gone for EspaceJeux, with the remaining Atlantic provinces sharing the Atlantic Lottery Corporation's online gambling services, including ALC Casino. 

Because of these distinctive provincial variations, Canada is unable to say it has a unified online gambling sector, but rather a mishmash of individual systems - two open to external enterprises, the rest sticking to existing single-operator monopolies. Therefore, whenever you cross into another province, the rules, the operators, and even the websites you're allowed to gamble on vary wildly, which is why Canada's gambling landscape feels so discombobulated.

Yet, perhaps one of the biggest points of confusion across Canada’s online gambling formats is the role of offshore sites–which operate in a legal gray area, and are still available in some regions–but don’t carry the same regulatory oversight and player protections as those authorized by each Canadian province. 

The Multi-Million-Dollar Question: Which Province Could Be Next?

Granted, many industry insiders have spent years pondering over which province was going to break ranks to follow Ontario’s lead, with Alberta finally shifting its stance to open the market up to outside entities. Naturally, the question on everyone’s lips now is, who’s next?

Of the remaining provinces, British Columbia is frequently touted as the most obvious choice given its mature online gambling market and its direct lobbying to address offshore gambling. Alternatively, the sheer size of Quebec's player base certainly makes it a viable candidate too, particularly given the capacity to expand iGaming-related tax revenues.

Nevertheless, at least for now, both remain publicly committed to continuing their existing government-run formats, but no doubt, if Alberta’s liberalization effort does prove to be an overwhelming success, you can bet your last toonie it won’t be long before another province takes the plunge.