Alberta iGaming Market Hits 50 Sites, Expects 60+ By 2027

Tuesday, Oct. 13, was a significant milestone for the new regulated Alberta iGaming market.

Not only did it mark three months since the initial wave of licensed operators started taking bets in Canada’s second commercial online gambling province, but it also ended the grace period that provincial regulators gave to previously unregulated operators.

Tuesday was the deadline by which any online casinos or sportsbooks that had been taking bets from Albertans before July 13 had to either move to the regulated market or shut down their platform in the province.

That cutoff led to what a senior Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis (AGLC) official described to Canadian Gaming Business as “a second wave” of operators entering the market after the initial influx in July.

“Tuesday was a big day for us,” Alberta iGaming Corporation (AiGC) CEO Dan Keene told Canadian Gaming Business on Wednesday.

Which licensed online gambling platforms are available in Alberta?

In line with the Oct. 13 requirement, AiGC added many sites to its list of active licensed platforms in recent days.

When regulated Alberta iGaming began on July 13, 22 separate sites hit the ground running on day one. Keene told Canadian Gaming Business that as of Oct. 14, a total of 50 licensed sites are doing business in the province, run by a total of 29 operating companies.

At the time of publishing on Wednesday, Oct. 14, AiGC lists 48 of those sites, many of which began taking bets shortly before the Oct. 13 deadline.

The 48 AiGC-managed commercial sites compete with Play Alberta. The government-owned platform run by AGLC was the only authorized Alberta iGaming platform before July 13, but is now just one of almost 50.

AiGC expects 10 to 15 more licensed sites by end of year

As Keene noted, that list of 48 Alberta iGaming sites equates to 29 different operators, as many sites share a parent operating company.

For instance, DraftKings owns Golden Nugget Online Casino and Bally’s owns the Monopoly site. Caesars Entertainment and PENN Entertainment both offer three separate platforms in Alberta, as they do in Ontario. Super Group has five licensed sites including Betway, PlayOJO owner Skill On Net offers four online casino sites, and Apollo Entertainment runs seven separate online casino brands.

Keene told Canadian Gaming Business that AiGC expects another 10 to 15 Alberta iGaming sites to go live before the end of 2026, which would take the total to as many as 65.

*AiGC CEO Dan Keene speaking at SBC Summit Canada in May 2026. Image: SBC*

In Alberta iGaming, grey just became black and white

In essence, the Oct. 13 deadline completed Alberta’s process of turning a pre-existing “grey market” into a case of black and white.

By no means all of the licensed Alberta iGaming sites listed as of Oct. 14 were previously active in the province as unregulated platforms, but a considerable number of them were.

Now, they are either active as licensed sites under AGLC regulation and AiGC management, or they have stopped operating in the province. In theory, at least.

“If you’ve been operating in Alberta in the grey, whatever you want to call it, and now you are not part of the established regulated market, you are offside.”
AiGC CEO Dan Keene

Keene stressed that any remaining unlicensed operators in the province are officially “offside” as of Oct. 14, adding that the province has had “a very good response” from operators that wanted to be in the regulated space.

Alberta prepares to tackle unregulated holdouts

Speaking at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas in late September, Alberta’s minister responsible for iGaming, Dale Nally, told attendees that the provincial government will “go as hard as we can against that illicit market” after the Oct. 13 deadline passed.

“We’re going to pull every lever at our disposal to make sure that the good guys are rewarded and that we keep as much of the illicit market out of the province as possible,” Nally said in Vegas. “… You have to look at every possible avenue.”

The former VP of Gaming at AGLC, Keene did not go into details about what that may entail, but told Canadian Gaming Business that the provincial regulator will take a hardline stance, supported by AiGC.

“[The AGLC] will be bringing a force to bear from a regulatory standpoint … and the AIGC also has levers that we can pull.”
AiGC CEO Dan Keene

“I would suspect that AGLC is very diligent in their enforcement of our marketplace … They will be bringing a force to bear from a regulatory standpoint. And from an AiGC perspective, we’re not standing on the sidelines here. We have our own tools and measures to analyze the marketplace and provide information to our regulator on what we’re seeing and in terms of any compliance infractions.

“So it’s very much a partnership between AIGC and AGLC. I remain extremely confident in terms of the type of compliance measures AGLC will be implementing. At the same time, the AIGC also has levers that we can pull.”

More Alberta iGaming operators coming soon

The list of approved Alberta iGaming operating sites may stand at 50 for now, but it won’t stay still for long.

Several operators that have registered with AGLC are yet to begin taking bets in the province’s regulated market under AiGC’s oversight. That group includes:

888
Betano
BetNova
GGPoker
PointsBet
River Cree iGaming
ToonieBet

Canadian Gaming Business reached out to several of those platforms seeking more information on their launch plans. NSUS brand GGPoker and Betano owner Kaizen Gaming declined to offer any information, while the others did not respond to inquiries.

Other operators that have yet to apply for registration have also expressed their intentions to ultimately launch in Alberta’s regulated market, including Fanatics Betting and Gaming, which rolled out Fanatics Casino in Ontario for the first time this summer.

Keene stressed that more operators are welcome, particularly if they are net-new to Alberta iGaming.

“If you are somebody who’s never been operating in Alberta in the grey, and now you want to come to Alberta, that process remains the same,” he added. “Whether it’s a PointBet, Fanatics, Hard Rock, or whoever. We would welcome those operators because they’ve never been operating in the grey market in Alberta.”

Alberta iGaming is out of the shadows

Ultimately, Keene believes the fact that Alberta hosts 50 licensed iGaming sites just three months after the launch illustrates perfectly why launching regulated online gambling was necessary in the first place.

“The market opened on July 13. Here we are, three months later, and we’ve got 50 websites. What that tells me is that the market was here for decades, operating in Alberta. That money was leaving the province, and there were no compliance measures consistent across all these operators.

“So, it was very important that the government did what they did to regulate the market. That’s the best way to ensure security and safety for Albertans who choose to participate going forward.”