There is excellent reason to believe that Alberta will be a real moneymaker for the online gambling industry.

It may even be a near billion-dollar market. Someday, maybe.

- Alberta is preparing to introduce a managed iGaming market, which would make it Canada's second province after Ontario to enable personal online sportsbook and casino operators.

- Comparisons to Ontario's multibillion-dollar market and information from the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission recommend Alberta's overall online gambling income might be in the hundreds of millions every year.

- The Alberta iGaming market will consist of preexisting operators and those that have yet to introduce online sports wagering and iCasino in the province.

First, however, that market requires to open.

Alberta has actually been working for years on a competitive, regulated framework for online sports wagering and internet-based casino video games. The plan for the new Alberta sports wagering and iGaming market is to invite, license, and control private-sector operators, which will turn over a bit more than 20% of their income to the province in return.

And when Alberta's iGaming market launches, which some companies now anticipate to take place in the late spring or early summertime, it will bring the variety of provincially controlled online gambling alternatives for locals from one, Play Alberta, to several. It will likewise make Alberta the 2nd province in Canada to license private-sector iGaming competition, after Ontario released a similar market in 2022.

Alberta's de facto iGaming minister, Dale Nally, has said the provincial federal government does not see this as a "money grab" however instead as a way to offer more consumer security. Still, some money will be gotten, including to support accountable gambling programs and the province's First Nations.

"Once the regulated market is developed, Alberta's federal government will have the ability to capture betting earnings currently lost to unregulated websites frequently situated beyond Alberta," Nally said in 2015. "This brand-new revenue can be used to support First Nations as well as social responsibility initiatives and other government concerns."

In the grand scheme of things, Alberta's launch this year will be a reasonably huge offer for the world of legalized sports wagering and online gambling establishment betting.

It appears unlikely that there will be a flurry of state-level launches in the U.S. in 2026 (Maine may be one, a minimum of), particularly with federally managed prediction markets complicating things with their across the country form of de facto sports wagering.

That leaves Alberta as a source of certainty for significant gambling operators. DraftKings, for example, is budgeting for a launch of online sports betting and iCasino in the province later this year.

Super Group, Betway's moms and dad business, has baked into its 2026 quotes a Q2 launch of online sports betting and iCasino in Alberta's yet-to-launch regulated iGaming market. pic.twitter.com/TlAypxbsDe

Nevertheless, there are numbers that recommend Alberta would be a top priority for the online gaming industry even if it were simply among many brand-new jurisdictions set to launch. The province has the prospective to generate a lot of iGaming revenue for both private operators and the province. That's why brands like DraftKings, Betway, and BetRivers are lining up to join its regulated market.

So how much would Alberta actually deserve?

To start, there is currently a province in Canada running the very same sort of iGaming market that Alberta aims to launch: Ontario. The figures reported by Ontario's iGaming firm suggest serious potential in Alberta too.

Ontario launched its competitive iGaming market in April 2022, and there are now around 50 operators and more than 80 websites using online sports betting, iCasino, poker, and bingo.

In January, more than $9.5 billion was bet utilizing those websites, creating more than $400 million in earnings for operators and the province, which keeps around 20% of invoices. The first year of Ontario's brand-new iGaming market saw around $35.6 billion wagered and approximately $1.4 billion in total video gaming profits produced.

(Quick aside: We're primarily talking about profits in this post, not overall betting or "deal with." As the Ontario numbers show, the total amount bet in the province, and in Alberta, will frequently be in the billions. However, a few of those bets will be won. The earnings mentioned here is what's left over after paying those winners.)

Some juicy statistics

Data supplied to Covers by Juice Reel, an app sports bettors can utilize to track their plays and that offers analytics and the capability to tail other gamblers, recommends resemblances in between Alberta and Ontario bettors.

Juice Reel stated the typical bet size for Alberta-based users was $32, and the typical regular monthly deal with for January was $5,151. Albertans were likewise using, usually, 1.3 online sportsbooks, and 37% of their bets were parlays.

To compare, the average bet size for Juice Reel's Ontario-based users was $34, and the typical monthly handle was $8,679. The typical number of books used was 2.17, and the parlay portion was 41%. The typical bet size in both jurisdictions was $10.

There are some cautions to the above worth noting. For beginners, this is based on bets tracked utilizing Juice Reel. Moreover, anybody utilizing a bet-tracking app like Juice Reel is most likely a notch or 2 above the most leisure of bettors.

Juice Reel's data also consists of overseas and provincially regulated books, in addition to day-to-day dream sites. However, not every single book that Alberta and Ontario bettors may be utilizing is caught in the numbers.

DraftKings feels quite particular that the launch of its online sportsbook/casino in Alberta is "around the corner," and is forecasting its financials accordingly: https://t.co/1R5ZCywuHk @Covers

Still, Juice Reel noted the information recommends resemblances in between Alberta and Ontario. However, the previous has yet to execute an Ontario-like iGaming model and authorize some of the operators present only in Ontario at the moment.

Ontario is also Canada's most populated province, with a population of around 16 million. It's unlikely Alberta and its around five-million-strong population will produce the very same numbers. Still, just the rough population mathematics alone hints that Alberta could be worth around a 3rd of what Ontario is doing. That would mean around $460 million in iGaming-related income in Year 1.

That would be just to start. There is proof that the typical Albertan could out-gamble the typical Ontarian too.

Anecdotally, you might point to Albertans' intense love affair with the Edmonton Oilers' "50/50" raffle, which has actually raised numerous millions of dollars for charity. You could also point to research study by Statistics Canada showing the typical annual wage in Alberta is approximately $30,000 higher than in Ontario.

It's worth keeping in mind, too, that Ontario's iGaming earnings has actually continued to grow considering that its launch. While approximately $1.4 billion in overall video gaming income was produced in Year 1, more than $4 billion was produced in 2025, according to figures from iGaming Ontario.

How Alberta's presently playing

Furthermore, there are financials you could parse from Alberta's only authorized iGaming operator at the moment. Those might be utilized to attempt to forecast the total size of the province's online gambling market.

The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) reported in its latest annual report that its online betting net sales (or net earnings) for the year ending March 31, 2025, were nearly $270 million, up $35 million from the previous .

That profits flowed from "5 distinct video gaming experiences" used through the AGLC's Play Alberta platform: gambling establishment, "immediate" games, live dealer games, lottery, and online sports betting.

The bulk of Play Alberta's online betting income comes from money bettors lose playing casino-style video games, which accounted for 73.1% of net sales for the most just recently reported year, or $197.3 million. Sports betting, on the other hand, created the least for Play Alberta of all of its verticals, producing simply shy of $8 million in net sales, or 3% of the overall.

This, nevertheless, just catches part of the existing market for online betting in Alberta. It's estimated that the bulk of internet-based betting occurs with companies that might be managed abroad or outside the province, however not by the province itself.

This so-called "grey" or "black" market is earning the lion's share of service from Alberta's online bettors. The robust and "uncontrolled" market is arguably the chief reason Alberta is releasing a regulated iGaming market in the first place - to try to capture that activity.

"Unregulated online betting is already extensively available across the province, with some service providers operating with minimal or no gamer protection or social responsibility steps," the provincial government states. "Based upon current study information, unregulated operators are estimated to record approximately 70% of Alberta's total iGaming market."

This recommends Play Alberta represents around 30% of iGaming-related revenue being produced in the province. That would also recommend the overall size of Alberta's online gaming market is someplace in the ballpark of $900 million in yearly revenue.

It's a pretty loose quote, and an old one, as the most current AGLC figures only go to March 31, 2025. However, if the $270 million in Play Alberta-related net sales is just 30% of the overall addressable market, that suggests another $630 million is being earned elsewhere.

(The Alberta federal government said just recently that Play Alberta created $275 million in net sales over the previous year, and that the platform is approximated to record only around 23% to 32% of the province's overall iGaming market. But, for the purposes of this estimate-heavy story, we're playing things on the conservative side.)

Guesstimation time

Again, this is a great deal of estimating, forecasting, and theorizing, but it's not far off from the "B" word: "billion."

Other data recommends a lot more upside for Alberta.

A 2024 study performed by research study company H2 Gambling Capital on behalf of the International Betting Integrity Association indicated there could be hundreds of millions of dollars in "unregulated" online sports betting revenue in Alberta. That profits could be funnelled into Alberta's regulated market.

"If (an Ontario-like iGaming) model was presented from the start of 2025, that might bring around $400m in taxable sports betting (gross video gaming earnings) back onshore throughout 2025-28 on present overseas market forecasts," the report said. "However, a regulated commercial market would likewise be expected to grow the overall market and the real taxable GGR capacity is therefore expected to be higher."

Alberta's forthcoming iGaming market might ultimately generate more than US$ 700M a year in profits, according to Citizens JMP Securities expert Jordan Bender.

"If $700M of video gaming income is fulfilled, it would represent the eighth-largest gaming market in North America." pic.twitter.com/E6IJX9DASe

This additional profits for the managed market would be purely tied to online sports wagering. It doesn't even consist of iCasino, which the Play Alberta figures recommend would make up most of iGaming income. Play Alberta's online sportsbook is only supplying a low single-digit share of its earnings as well.

So, there is potentially much more space to grow. And it's here that we begin drawing nearer to the billion-dollar mark again.

Another 2024 study, done by experts at financial investment bank Citizens, projection Alberta's iGaming market could ultimately be worth more than US$ 700 million in earnings a year.

That US$ 700 million would exercise to around $950 million in Canadian currency. This would make it similar in size to Arizona's sports wagering market, which created $713.8 million in gross income in 2015.