Alberta One Step Closer to iGaming

Alberta took the necessary step of issuing an order in council last week, which officially proclaims that Bill 48, the iGaming Alberta Act, or at least the important bits of it, is now in force. 

The provincial legislature had passed the bill late last month, but under Canadian law, it needed to be proclaimed before the establishment of one of the key pieces of the bill, the Alberta iGaming Corporation. 

It would appear that, despite what many might consider a lack of imagination in both laws and company names, this Royal Assent now brings into being the company tasked with “developing, organizing, and conducting” the various gambling activities envisioned in the law. 

This will include both online casinos and sports betting, though to be fair, both are already legal in the Texas of the North. It’s just that they are conducted through Play Alberta, a slightly better moniker than Alberta iGaming Corp., which, until now, was the monopoly provider of gambling to the approximately 5 million Albertans who might like to take a flutter.

Some of you may be shocked that an online casino, covered in layers of bureaucracy and plagued by glitchy technology, run by the state, has struggled to keep and retain players, but here we are. Mistrust and outright disdain amongst most players finally forced the hand of legislators.

Although there may also have been some covetousness from lawmakers eyeing the $1.5 billion in taxes that Ontario has collected over the last three years from its very successful privatization of gambling.  

It’s certainly no secret that most of Alberta's law was based on Ontario’s attempts to create an open and competitive market that worked better for both players and the government.

By co-opting many of the already highly successful grey market operators, who were capturing an increasing market share from their flailing monopoly, and bringing them into the fold as licensed and taxed partners, Ontario initiated what can be called an iGaming boom. 

Alberta hopes to capture some of that laissez-faire largesse by throwing open its market to free market competition as well. Ontario posted more than 3.2 billion Canadian dollars last year in revenue and took a flat 20% of that in taxes. That revenue number was up more than 32% from the previous year, and there are more than 75 online casinos currently up and running in the province.

If Alberta can capture even a fraction of that magic, it will certainly help mitigate the financial cliff it faces from falling oil and gas prices this year. Some estimate that Alberta is staring down a more than $5 billion deficit after an almost 5 billion surplus the year before. 

It’s unlikely that even a wildly popular relaunch of a more competitive open market for iGaming and sports betting later this year or early in 2026 will be able to fill that gap. 

Still, if Alberta’s new casinos can spark even a bit more marketing imagination than, say, Alberta iGaming Corp., they may just win back some of those players who’ve drifted to untaxed grey market sites and might yet turn a fiscal fumble into a digital payday.