Alberta follows Ontario's lead with iGaming bill approval
Alberta is on the brink of a major shift in its gambling landscape after the Legislature approved , the iGaming Alberta Act, setting the stage for a regulated online gaming market that will welcome private operators to the province.
With royal assent all but guaranteed, Alberta is poised to become the second Canadian province, after Ontario, to open its doors to a competitive iGaming sector.
What the iGaming Alberta Act means for players and operators
Once in force, Bill 48 will create the Alberta iGaming Corporation, a new Crown entity tasked with regulating and licensing online gambling platforms. This move is designed to bring order to a rapidly growing market and to offer Albertans a safer, more responsible way to play. As Minister Dale Nally, who sponsored the bill, explained:
“This is about bringing order to a growing market, collecting revenue, and giving Albertans a safer, more responsible way to play.”
Currently, Play Alberta is the only provincially regulated online gambling option, but it holds less than half the market share. Many Albertans turn to so-called “grey market” sites, which operate outside provincial oversight. Bill 48 aims to redirect this activity into a regulated framework, where private operators will contract with the new Alberta iGaming Corporation.
The government has signalled its intention to model Alberta’s system after Ontario’s, which has attracted 49 operators and generated over CAD $2.4 billion in gross gaming revenue since launching in 2022. Industry leaders are optimistic, with Paul Burns, CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, stating:
“The industry is excited for this next step to bring an open and competitive iGaming market to Alberta.”
Regulatory details and opposition concerns
Despite the bill’s passage, significant questions remain about how Alberta will regulate its new iGaming market. The legislation itself is largely a framework, leaving critical details to be set out in regulations that will be developed later this year. This has drawn criticism from the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), who argue the bill lacks concrete rules for player protection, advertising standards, and responsible gambling.
Parmeet Singh Boparai, an NDP member, voiced concerns:
“A central concern with Bill 48 is that we still do not know what the specific regulations or rules will be for the proposed Alberta iGaming Corporation. While the bill sets the groundwork for the creation of this new Crown Corporation, the details regarding player protection, advertising restrictions and responsible gambling policies will be determined only after the bill is passed.”
Fellow NDP member Nathan Ip was even more direct:
“This bill does not contain a single concrete rule, safeguard, or mechanism to regulate online gambling. It does not outline standards for player protection. It does not establish advertising restrictions. It does not address age verification. It does not define how revenues will be allocated. Instead, it defers all of these critical matters to regulations that may or may not be introduced later.”
Nally responded by assuring the Assembly that more information about regulations-including advertising restrictions-will be released “later this year, following further engagement”.
What comes next for Alberta’s iGaming market
With legislative approval secured, the final step is royal assent from the Lieutenant Governor, a ceremonial formality. The real work now begins: drafting the regulations that will govern Alberta’s new iGaming sector. Industry observers expect the market could launch as early as late 2025 or early 2026.
Nally has promised that Alberta will learn from Ontario’s experience, but also introduce a key innovation: a centralised self-exclusion programme for problem gamblers, covering both online and land-based venues. As he put it:
“If there is one thing I think we can do better [than Ontario], it’s that we can go live on day one with centralised self-exclusion… our commitment is that on day one, there will be system-wide self-exclusion, you’ll be able to push a button and you won’t be able to play on any of the regulated online spaces. That will also include land-based casinos and racing centres.”
As Alberta prepares to open its market, all eyes will be on how it balances industry growth with robust consumer protections; a task that, as one opposition MLA put it, is a bit like “buying a car without knowing if it has brakes.”
