Alberta Moves Forward With Regulated Online Casino Market

The saying goes ”You can’t make the grass grow by pulling on it”, and Alberta seems to have put that old farmer’s tale to good use, slowly cultivating and tending to its burgeoning Canada online casino market. After a rather interminable wait, the provincial government in Edmonton released new regulations meant not only to underpin the framework of their new gambling venture but to ensure that Albertans have a safe and responsible place to wager online.

Following their sister province Ontario, they first moved to ban the use of athletes, celebrities, entertainers, and social media influencers from gambling advertising, though definitions here can be slippery. They also chose, probably wise, to prohibit using any cartoon figures.There is a carve-out if any of these prohibited figures are used solely for Responsible Gaming advertising.

They also rolled out a Centralized Self Exclusion system (CSE). This means instead of having to visit every online casino, a player can simply register here and be excluded from every site in the territory. It even links land-based and online gambling businesses in one easy to use the platform. You can be excluded for a period of six months to three years with a lifetime ban also available. They also offer shorter “cooling off periods” that can range from 24 hours to a month. 

A new industry term we've been seeing a lot of is pre-commitment limits. This means that new signups are prompted to set max deposit, loss and even time limits before they can even begin playing, which is what Alberta has chosen to implement. Other features include forcing operators to scrub anyone listed on the CSE from marketing databases in real time and imposing steep fines on those casinos that do send promotional items to those on the list.

Taxes and Fees

Initial licenses will be considerably higher than those in Ontario. There is a $50,000 one-time fee to help cover investigation costs and then $150,000 annual fee per iGaming site, meaning operators who run more than one site will pay $200,000 each initially and then the annual fee per website.  Ontario has just a $100,000 fee per year per site. Platform and Gaming System suppliers will pay a $15,000 annual fee, while all other secondary suppliers will need to pony up $3,000 per annum.

Similarly, the adjusted tax rate in Alberta is slightly higher as well, though may not appear so at first glance. Ontario pays a simple 20% on non-adjusted gross gaming revenue (GGR). In Alberta, there is first a 3% tax on (GGR), two thirds of which goes to a First Nation Tribal fund, and one third which will be spent on Responsible Gaming programs. Then the 20% tax rate kicks in on the remaining revenue which actually means closer to a 22.4% adjusted rate. 

Hard Reset

When Ontario launched their iGaming market in 2022, one of their main goals was to entice punters to come in from the cold, as it were, and leave the grey market, untaxed and unregulated offshore gaming sites and embrace the new legal ones. But to complicate things, that meant first licensing many of these grey market operators as they had a vast amount of the Province’s market share already in their databases.

In practice this meant that Ontario had grey market operators that were allowed to keep running even as they began the licensing process to prevent players from migrating to other, even blacker sites that had decided to forgo licensing at all while everything was sorted. This did capture something like 80% of the existing market, but left a bad taste in the mouths of those operators who had never gone the grey market route and felt the process had been unfair.

In Alberta, after watching the Ontario market mature for the last four years, they’ve decided to take a different approach. Registration begins now. Once a gaming operator is accepted into this registration process, they need to show that they are no longer taking  grey market bets in the province.

Alberta currently has one legal licensed site, Play Alberta, which will remain in operation, though it was this site's many failures that in some part at least led the Edmonton legislature to open up the market to competition in the first place. But a large majority of gamblers using other grey market sites may face months where they are unable to access their preferred online casino.

Alberta calls this the Clean Break rule, and while it may mean a more fair process for operators, there are uncertain questions about losing some players to black market sites that will step in as the current gray market dries up. There is also a bit of a kerfuffle regarding current bonus funds and points in grey market accounts as these sites go dark for a time.

 The general consensus seems to be that points and tier levels will migrate, but bonus funds and free play offers will not. But what about unresolved bets, say on a 2026 Stanley Cup winner? Current thinking is that those bets will need to be voided and refunded. All of this is still being evaluated by the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC) who act as regulator, but also as market participant, still running Play Alberta. 

Conclusion

Alberta’s slow and steady approach since last May suggests they are prioritizing longer term market stability over a kick the doors open rapid expansion. Their emphasis on responsible gaming safeguards, high  regulatory standards and the clean break from grey market gambling is a clear signal that they will continue to put Albertans ahead of any quick revenue boost. 

Whether that caution ultimately strengthens their new market or leaves them susceptible to black market alternatives remains to be seen, but if Ontario is any guide, getting the framework right matters more than speed. And competitive, lightly taxed, regulated open markets can compete with these offshore sites when regulators and operators work together to build a better mousetrap.