Alberta's iGaming market opens to private operators including DraftKings and FanDuel, following Ontario's 2022 model. 22 operators are live, with more than 50 licensed.
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Alberta's online gambling and sports betting market opened to private operators today, putting the province on a path similar to Ontario's 2022 launch.
Dale Nally, the minister in charge of Service Alberta, said 22 private operators are already live, including DraftKings, FanDuel, and TheScore Bet. More than 50 others have been licensed by the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission.
Alberta becomes the second Canadian jurisdiction to legalize private iGaming. Ontario opened its market in 2022, arguing that regulation would bring grey-market operators under a legal framework, improving game integrity and anti-money laundering compliance. At the time, Ontario estimated roughly 70 percent of its online gaming sites were unregulated. The Alberta iGaming Strategy cites the same reasoning.
Ontario now has 81 regulated private iGaming sites and has generated about $10 billion in revenue, according to iGaming Ontario. Most players in the province now use regulated sites. The shift has also coincided with a rise in gambling- and debt-related bankruptcies and gambling addiction.
The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, in a 2025 report, found that online gamblers were 10 times more likely to exceed risk thresholds and 45 times more likely to meet criteria for problem gambling compared with traditional lottery players.
Before today, Alberta's only legal digital gambling was through the AGLC's PlayAlberta platform, which handled $5.3 billion in wagers in 2024. The province estimates only 23 to 32 percent of the market used PlayAlberta, with the rest going to grey-market sites. Some operators have already reacted. CoolBets cited the regulatory change as the reason for its decision to leave Alberta.
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