Alberta officials stated their desire for brick-and-mortar casinos and First Nations gaming entities to take part in the province’s new iGaming market alongside the giants of online gambling. The first of them, PURE Casino Entertainment, has officially entered the fray.
Multi-casino operator PURE, which is owned by Indigenous Gaming Partners (IGP), launched purecasino.ca on the morning of Friday, July 7, as Alberta’s 27th licensed online gambling site in the regulated market that opened to the public on July 13.
Powered by Boyd Interactive’s technology, it will compete in a crowded field with many of the most familiar names and biggest hitters of U.S. and Ontario iGaming, including bet365, BetMGM, Caesars, DraftKings, FanDuel, theScore Bet, fellow new addition Bally’s, and more.
“It’s an exciting moment,” PURE Casino Entertainment CEO Brad Belhouse tells Canadian Gaming Business in an interview. “It took a lot of work to get to this point, and our team did an amazing job. We’re looking forward to providing a great experience for our guests online.
“This is something that’s been on the radar for a long time.”
How many casinos does PURE Casino Entertainment own in Alberta?
The company formerly known as PURE Canadian Gaming has been operating casinos in Alberta since the late 1980s, and former Caesars Entertainment Vice President Belhouse has led the company since 2021.
Until recently, the Edmonton-based operator’s portfolio consisted of four brick-and-mortar locations in the province:
- PURE Casino Edmonton
- PURE Casino Yellowhead
- PURE Casino Calgary
- PURE Casino Lethbridge
Things changed in late 2024, when IGP, a coalition of five separate Nova Scotia First Nations working together with casino company Sonco Gaming, bought PURE’s casino operating assets from Onex’s ONCAP for an undisclosed amount.
Then, in June of this year, privately-owned PURE bought fellow Alberta casino operator GameHost Inc. in a cash-per-share take-private deal that valued the latter company at around $282m. That added three more casinos and two hotels to PURE’s land-based portfolio, including Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn & Casino, Great Northern Casino in Grande Prairie, and Fort McMurray’s Rivers Casino and Entertainment Centre.
The deal further cements PURE as the largest casino operator in Alberta, with seven gaming venues.
“The GameHost portfolio is very complementary to ours,” Belhouse explains to Canadian Gaming Business. “They’ve got the two casinos up north, which we didn’t have, the second casino in Calgary. And they all have strong brand recognition with their customers. We’ve now got seven casinos plus two hotels with all parts of the province covered.”
PURE Casino iGaming has been a long time coming
Now, PURE Casino Entertainment is extending its longstanding gaming roots into a new world for Alberta gambling and for First Nations gaming in the province.
Being able to branch out into online gambling under the same brand is something that Belhouse and PURE have been eyeing for a while; certainly since Alberta began firmly exploring the idea of legalizing commercial online gambling in 2024.
“Yes, we had talked about it under our previous ownership with ONCAP,” Belhouse adds. “At that time, it was uncertain what any regulatory framework would be, so it was really hard to have any concrete plans. But even back then, we were thinking about participating in iGaming in some capacity.
“You just look across North America, iGaming is really where the growth has been, right? So figuring out a way to participate is something we’ve always looked at.”
Others could follow.
Another First Nations brick-and-mortar casino, Edmonton-area River Cree Resort & Casino, has also registered to take its brand online. The minister responsible for Alberta iGaming, Dale Nally, said at SBC Summit Canada 2026 in Toronto in May that the province is encouraging land-based operators and Alberta First Nations to participate in the regulated iGaming market.
PURE aims to make retail advantage count
While PURE’s competing Alberta iGaming operators were all able to pre-register customers in the province before actually hitting the market and starting to take bets, PURE has one thing that none of them have: Existing casino operations across Canada’s second regulated iGaming province.
Belhouse believes that even if purecasino.ca is not a major player by market share, that advantage will show.
“Some of our customers have said to us, ‘We really want the option to play with PURE online.'”
“We know the Alberta customer,” he tells Canadian Gaming Business. “All seven of our properties have been operating for a long time, provide excellent customer service, and operate responsibly and safely. That has created trust in the brand with customers. We see it as a natural evolution to extend that into the digital space.
“This is all about providing those who want the convenience of iGaming with the ability to game with the PURE experience in whatever form they want it to be. We’ve got this built-in base of loyal customers for not only the PURE brand but now the GameHost brands as well, many of whom have indicated they’re interested in online.
“That’s what I think is an advantage to us. Some of the iGaming operators have been here in grey-market capacity, but they’re having to start acquisition from scratch. We’ve got a bit of a headstart, I would say, on our land-based customers, some of whom have expressed to us they want to be able to play in the online space with PURE.”
To try to capitalize on that, the online and mobile PURE Casino brand will seek to ensure continuity and connection with its existing land-based operations. It will offer digital versions of many of the physical slot cabinets it has in its land-based casinos, as part of a much wider online portfolio featuring games from major suppliers, and has been promoting the arrival of the online version at its locations.
“We’ve got a bit of a headstart on our land-based customers.”
“One of the things we’ve been doing is looking at the data we have from our customers on the machines they like to play at each of our properties, and making sure those products are featured in a meaningful way online,” notes Belhouse. “A lot of our discussion around iGaming is to make people aware that the offerings are the same.”
In Kambi, PURE gets a sports betting leader
While PURE is mostly focused on taking its casino experience online, Alberta iGaming also presents an opportunity to expand on the sports betting side. The operator moved to secure a leader in that field, selecting Kambi from a pool of candidates to power an omnichannel sports wagering offering.
The European company has a history of not only online and retail sports betting but also of working with tribal entities in the U.S. on their sportsbook operations, as well as numerous Canadian gaming operators. Belhouse tells Canadian Gaming Business that PURE is confident it is working with the best partner it could have hoped for.
“It’s new to us, and so we wanted an expert in the field,” he acknowledges. “If we’re going to get into sports betting, we needed to go with someone that has this leading technology and the experience to make sure this goes successfully for us. We talked to numerous folks about that, but Kambi was the one we felt stood out.”
Kambi’s turnkey sportsbook will allow PURE to offer online sports betting to its existing and new customers. The supplier’s expertise could also come in handy if PURE decides to open retail sportsbooks at its casino locations, something that Alberta’s iGaming framework allows.
“That’s certainly something we’re actively looking at,” Belhouse tells Canadian Gaming Business. “Whether it’s all of the casinos or a portion of them, we still need to decide, but there’s an opportunity there. I was in the U.S. for quite a while, and having that retail sportsbook really has the potential to draw a different demographic to the property that you might not otherwise get. It also has additional benefits in other verticals, like food and beverage and events.
“I think that same type of opportunity may exist here as well, where we could bring in a different demographic to watch an Oilers playoff game and be able to place that bet in person. We’ll look at it case by case.”
Belhouse used the word ‘opportunity’ numerous times during the interview, and that’s not without meaning. For an expanding land-based operator like PURE, with brick-and-mortar roots and Indigenous ownership and interests, regulated iGaming opens new doors and the potential for further economic prosperity, even in one of the most crowded and competitive online gambling markets in North America.
“It’s a big opportunity for us [to offer] a unique value proposition.”
“Yeah, it’s a big opportunity for us,” Belhouse summarizes. “I can’t say what [revenue] we’re projecting for ourselves, but it’s big enough for us to be willing to make the significant investments we’re making in the technology and the marketing and all the startup costs.
“We think we have a unique value proposition to be able to offer gaming through an experience that is consistent on the land-based side and the digital side. That’s an exciting opportunity for us to really have that complete set of offerings.”
