Alberta officials had already signposted that the province would follow Ontario’s playbook on iGaming advertising, and the upcoming market’s regulator has confirmed the rules.
The province will open its doors for regulated online sports betting and casino gaming on July 13. As of the time of writing, Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis (AGLC) lists almost 50 registered Alberta iGaming operator sites that are approved to enter the market and compete with the provincial government’s Play Alberta site.
In an update on June 18, AGLC codified what it expects from its commercial operators when it comes to advertising and marketing. The unsurprising headline is that it closely resembles the regulations Ontario has in place, including bans on most advertising of bonuses and promotions and restrictions on the use of celebrities and athletes.
What has Alberta borrowed from Ontario?
The update to the AGLC’s standards for iGaming lays out four pages of do-nots for the dozens of approved and registered Alberta operators who will be setting up shop in the province.
Many of those are direct copy-and-pastes from Ontario, meaning the majority of Alberta online casinos and sportsbooks will be greatly familiar with the requirements:
- Operators may not advertise or market gambling inducements, bonuses, and credits, except on their own site and via direct communications to players who have opted in to receive them. Direct marketing must be on an opt-in basis only, and players must be given a method “which is easily found” to withdraw their consent at any time.
- Advertising may not target minors. The use of imagery, themes, cartoons, celebrities, or influencers who would likely be expected to appeal to children will be banned, as will advertising near schools or other primarily youth-oriented locations. Also banned will be physical or digital ads for which most of the audience could reasonably be expected to be minors.
- Active or retired athletes can only be used in advertising and marketing for the exclusive purpose of advocating for responsible gambling practices.
So, like in Ontario, high-profile brand ambassador deals like Betway’s agreement with Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr.must be focused entirely on responsible gambling messaging.
These are just some of the requirements. Others include that operators must limit marketing communications to all known high-risk players and must not target them towards potentially high-risk players.
Alberta demands that all operators play fair
In addition, some of a number of “minimum integrity requirements” laid out by the regulator include that advertising, marketing materials and communications must not promote gambling as a financial investment, encourage play as a means of recovering past gaming or other financial losses, or imply that chances of winning increase the longer one plays or the more one spends.
Advertising also must not imply that skill can influence the outcome of chance-based games like slot reels.
Unlike when Ontario launched commercial online gambling four years ago, Alberta’s market will have a centralized self-exclusion system in place from day one, wherein players can opt out of all iGaming sites, all land-based gaming locations, or all licensed gambling of any kind at the touch of a button. The AGLC’s rules now make it clear that operators must not send advertising, marketing materials or communications to any self-excluded players for the duration of their self-exclusion period.
Ontario has since launched its own centralized self-exclusion system, BetGuard.
Meanwhile, as part of their promotional partnerships, licensed operators must not either directly or indirectly allow players to access an iGaming site at physical premises. That stipulation comes in the wake of AGLC clarifying its rules for how casinos can advertise online gambling in a separate update to its land-based casino standards earlier this month.
AGLC can tell operators to take down ads
Alberta’s regulator also emphasizes in its new rules that it is ready to take a firm hand if needed.
AGLC said that it reserves the right to tell operators to amend or take down any advertising or a certain promotional offering “in the interest of ensuring integrity and social responsibility”, at the regulator’s discretion.
In Alberta, as in Ontario, numerous operators will likely contract third-party advertising firms to help promote their products. AGLC’s update rules stress that it is operators’ responsibility to ensure that such affiliated marketing firms do not offer similar services to unlicensed operators in the province.
One of Alberta’s foundational prerequisites for eligibility for an iGaming license in its upcoming market is that operators such as bet365 and Betway parent Super Group, which have a longstanding grey-market presence in the province, must end all such unregulated activity before July 13, or within a certain timeframe in certain excepted cases.
