iGaming Ontario (iGO) has found its new leader.
The regulated iGaming market’s conduct-and-manage agency announced on Thursday, Aug. 28, that former Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) Chief Strategy Officer Joseph Hillier has been appointed to the newly created positions of president and CEO. He will officially begin work Sept. 8, 2025.
iGO has been looking for a successor for Executive Director Martha Otton for months.
It has been just over a year since iGO announced in August 2024 that Otton would retire effective Dec. 31, 2024 after nearly four years in the job. Otton, who led iGO through the lead-up to, launch of and early success of Ontario’s regulated commercial online gaming and betting market, later pushed back her retirement date to help the agency search for her permanent replacement.
David Smith has been serving as interim president and CEO since Otton belatedly retired this spring.
Hillier knows Ontario iGaming and iGO well
iGaming Ontario, which is now under the oversight of the provincial Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming, said in a release that Hillier’s depth of knowledge of the Ontario iGaming market and career experience make him an ideal leader “at this critical point in iGaming Ontario’s growth.”
Hillier was most recently CSO and corporate secretary at AGCO, the market regulator which was until recently the parent organization of iGO. At the AGCO, he helped to lead strategy and regulation of the province’s gaming and horse racing sectors, as well as alcohol and cannabis. He is also the former Chief of Staff to Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey, a position from which he also helped to lead the development, launch and implementation of Canada’s first private-sector iGaming market and the creation of iGO.
Suffice it to say, he knows the provincial online gambling industry pretty well.
iGO focused on AML and self-exclusion upgrades
iGO added that its board of directors looks forward to supporting Hillier as the new CEO leads the now-standalone agency to deliver on key priorities. One of those is a longed-for updated anti-money laundering (AML) system fopr operators, which iGO spokesperson Josh Elliott told Canadian Gaming Business recently is in development.
“Our aim is that this system will improve efficiency and speed while also remaining secure and reducing the administrative burden on operators,” Elliott said in May. “When complete, this system will allow iGaming Ontario to file reports to FINTRAC via secure data feed, much as other high-volume entities do. This is a complex project, as it requires integration with our approximately 50 different operators and their individual systems. We do not have a launch date to share at this time.”
Another tool in development is a centralized self-exclusion platform for Ontarians that will allow gamblers in the province to opt out of multiple or all licensed online gaming platforms in one place. iGO contracted IXUP and Integrity Compliance 360(IC360) to develop that system a year ago, but the partners are yet to roll it out.
Since May 12, iGO has officially been doing business as a standalone conduct-and-manage agency after the iGaming Ontario Act 2024 ended its subsidiary relationship with the AGCO market’s regulator, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). Last November, a spokesperson from AG Downey’s office told Canadian Gaming Business that the legal change was made in part to address a concern of a conflict of interest raised by Ontario’s Auditor General.
