Canada’s second open online gambling market goes live in six weeks, and more than 30 sportsbooks and casinos are scrambling to clear registration before the doors open.
- More than 30 companies have registered so far, among them DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, bet365 and theScore Bet, with 55-plus more somewhere in the pipeline
- Alberta is barring bets on elections and political events, a line Ontario never drew
- Operators have to finish registration by July 13 or land a short extension. Miss both and they are shut out of Alberta for good
- The launch ends the PlayAlberta government monopoly and goes after a grey market that may run as high as 90% of the province’s online betting
For years, the only online sportsbook Alberta officially blessed was the one it ran itself. That ends July 13.
On that Monday the province throws its online gambling market open to private operators, and the roster of companies cleared to take real money has been filling in week by week. Alberta will become the second Canadian province after Ontario to open its market, with the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission acting as regulator and a new body, the Alberta iGaming Corporation, running the market the way iGaming Ontario does next door. Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally locked in the date in a letter to the industry this spring.
The headline is not really that Alberta is legalizing online betting. People here have been doing it for years. It is who gets to be standing in the market when the doors open, and who gets locked out.
The July 13 Deadline Is the Real Story
Registration has turned into a sprint. The approved list sat at 28 operators in early May, then climbed to 31 by the end of the month once bet365 and BetVictor cleared the process. More than 55 companies are somewhere in line behind them.
The names already through read like the Ontario market shipped west: DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, BetRivers, BallyBet, PointsBet Canada and theScore Bet, alongside Canadian-owned books such as BET99, Betty Gaming and River Cree iGaming, which runs an actual casino outside Edmonton. Six operators are set to launch a sportsbook and an online casino at once. A few big names still had not registered as of late May, among them Fanatics, 888, GGPoker and TonyBet.
The deadline is what gives the thing teeth. An operator has to file a complete application and pay its fees by July 13. Miss that, and it can ask for an extension of up to three months, to October 13, but only case by case, and only by showing it could not realistically have been ready. Miss that second window too, and the door shuts for good. There is no quiet side entrance later.
Alberta also made operators clean up before they walked in. In March the regulator told books still running in the grey market to settle or cancel every outstanding bet before joining the regulated side. Twenty-two technology suppliers, including IGT and Light & Wonder, have been approved to power the back end.
What Alberta Copied, and What It Changed
The blueprint is Ontario, which opened its market in April 2022. Alberta lifted the structure almost whole: a regulator on one side, a provincial corporation conducting and managing the market on the other, private operators signing agreements to take part. The enabling law, Bill 48, passed in May 2025, and the regulations covering licensing, advertising and responsible gambling were adopted in January.
One piece did not get copied. Alberta is refusing to take bets on elections and other political events, something Ontario books are allowed to offer. The regulator put out a bulletin spelling it out. For a province that likes to cast itself as plain and a little contrarian, drawing that one line says something about how it wants the market to look.
Nally has framed the move less as an expansion of gambling than as a cleanup. “For Albertans who choose not to gamble, the best option is to not start,” he said when the framework was unveiled. “With unregulated iGaming widely available in our province, it is our responsibility to step in, regulate the market and hold private providers to the highest standards to protect Albertans, particularly our youth.”
Where the Money Goes
The province keeps a cut of everything won. Alberta will hold back about 20% of gross gaming revenue, and inside that slice, 2% is set aside for First Nations and 1% for social responsibility work like gambling research and treatment. Officials expect the regulated market to throw off roughly $100 million a year in tax.
Why bother? Because almost all of it is happening already, just offshore. Nally has put the unregulated share of Alberta’s online gambling at around 70%, and other estimates run as high as 90%. PlayAlberta, the government site, is not going anywhere, but it has spent years as one legal option swimming against a current of unregulated ones. The bet is that most of that money comes home once players have licensed books with familiar names to use instead.
The prize is real. Alberta has only about 4.8 million people to Ontario’s 15 million, but it leads the country in disposable income per person. Ontario’s market pulled in a record C$4.04 billion last year and sent C$807 million to the province in tax. Nobody expects Alberta to match those totals outright. Per head, though, this is a wealthy room. Players who want to understand the protections that come with a licensed book, and the limits, can start with responsible gambling resources built for Canadian bettors.
Why July, and What Comes Next
The timing is not an accident. Alberta is opening in the quiet stretch of the sports calendar. The market goes live days before the World Cup final on July 19 and just ahead of a Canadian Football League slate that has Calgary at home on July 18. The NFL does not kick off until September, the NHL until October. That hands new operators a few slow weeks to get their apps stable before the betting public really turns up.
They will not be quiet weeks for marketing. Google recently changed its rules to let licensed gambling operators run ads in Alberta, so expect feeds and airwaves to fill quickly once the books go live. Anyone weighing where to play can line up the Canadian sportsbooks as they register and launch.
After July 13 the list will keep growing. Operators who miss the first wave can still come in later, and the ones on the sidelines now, the Fanatics and 888s of the world, have every reason to join a market this affluent. The first real test will not be launch day. It will be whether Alberta can pull as much of that grey-market money into the light as it is counting on.
