March 5, 2026
We recently updated our overall tables on how much money various Canadian provinces were losing out on by failing to regulate iGaming. Thankfully, Alberta is doing the work to essentially copy iGaming Ontario. Alberta is about one-third the size of the Ontario market, will have a blended tax gaming tax rate of 22.4% compared to 20% in Ontario, and the cost to apply to serve Alberta is also more expensive. Despite this, Alberta has some things weighing in its favour to make it an attractive market for operators.
If an operator spent any of their marketing budget on "above the line" advertising in Canada for the Ontario market, they've also created brand awareness in Alberta, which is obviously to their advantage. Furthermore, Albertans generally have more disposable income than Canadians in any other province. Median income in Alberta is 12.8% higher than Ontario according to 2022 Statscan data, so it is more than plausible to assume that the average and median account holders in Alberta will be spending more per account than the average and median account holders in Ontario.
Ontario has seen explosive market growth continue since it opened in 2022. It is fairly safe to assume that all major iGaming Ontario casino, sports betting and poker brands will stump for licenses and pay the extra 2.4% in taxes for access to the Alberta market. Given this assumption, and based on the revenue and wagering figures out of Ontario that currently show no signs of plateauing, the first full year of revenue for the Alberta iGaming market will likely be well in excess of $1 billion. Although the true market size is actually much larger, the full extent may not be known for certain until well over a year past its launch date.
Since we know Alberta is essentially following the Ontario model, we can assume that there will be a similar leniency period regarding how the current "grey market" brands are allowed to transition into the legal Alberta market. As a result, the first four to six fiscal quarters of iGaming revenues will be a little messy, as they were in Ontario. There will be a launch date where brands like Caesars, BetMGM, Bally Bet, FanDuel, DraftKings and theScore Bet among others will immediately start serving the province legally, but these brands do not have current "grey market" operations that serve Alberta from offshore.
However, like Ontario, Alberta will probably allow the "grey market" offshore brands to join the legal market several months after its official launch. If they do, this means that many significant brands that will eventually be within the legal market, will be serving Albertans during initial market launch period, with wagering and revenue figures that will remain outside of the official Alberta iGaming ecosystem.
For example, a given operator could potentially continue to serve Alberta from offshore for three, four, or five months, before officially joining the "legal Alberta market." Thus, they would be able to bank a final three, four or five months of untaxed gaming revenues, all while the rest of the market has been open for some time, with their legal wagering activities officially on-record. If this is the case in Alberta, like it was with Ontario, we won't know the full size of the market until all the large, incumbent brands have operated for a full year within the regulated market.
This issue, the intricacies of how various "grey" brands lagged in their onboarding to the legal Ontario market was something that some well-followed American iGaming writers never fully understood.
| Don't assume American iGaming pundits will understand anything about the Alberta iGaming market launch. That won't stop them from commenting however. They couldn't help but speak about Ontario's early returns, without understanding the nuances of the subject. Now Ontario online gaming market revenue is nearly on par with the US gold standard: New Jersey. |
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Since the revenue figures from operators that come late to the party won't be captured as part of the initial revenue numbers in the province, we can try to extrapolate the revenue figures out of iGaming Ontario, adjusting for a relatively wealthier Albertan customer. In doing so, we can confidently say that the market should actually be worth more than $1.3 billion at its launch time, even if all the figures of the first year's activity cannot be captured for the above stated reasons. 22.4% in taxes means approximately $300 million a year in Alberta public revenues for government programs once all operators are fully in the legal gaming ecosystem.
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