There is great factor to think that Alberta will be a genuine moneymaker for the online gaming market.

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

- Alberta is preparing to introduce a regulated iGaming market, which would make it Canada's 2nd province after Ontario to enable personal online sportsbook and gambling establishment operators.

- Comparisons to Ontario's multibillion-dollar market and data from the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission recommend Alberta's total online gaming revenue might be in the numerous millions every year.

- The Alberta iGaming market will include preexisting operators and those that have yet to release 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 betting and internet-based casino games. The plan for the brand-new Alberta sports betting and iGaming market is to welcome, license, and control private-sector operators, which will turn over a bit more than 20% of their revenue to the province in return.

And when Alberta's iGaming market launches, which some companies now anticipate to happen in the late spring or early summer, it will bring the number of provincially controlled online gambling options for homeowners from one, Play Alberta, to several. It will also make Alberta the second province in Canada to license private-sector iGaming competitors, after Ontario released a similar market in 2022.

Alberta's de facto iGaming minister, Dale Nally, has stated the provincial government does not see this as a "money grab" however rather as a way to provide more customer protection. Still, some money will be gotten, including to support accountable gambling programs and the province's First Nations.

"Once the controlled market is developed, Alberta's federal government will have the ability to catch gambling earnings presently lost to unregulated websites frequently located beyond Alberta," Nally said in 2015. "This new revenue can be utilized to support First Nations along with social responsibility initiatives and other government concerns."

In the grand scheme of things, Alberta's launch this year will be a fairly big deal for the world of legalized sports wagering and online gambling establishment gaming.

It appears unlikely that there will be a flurry of state-level launches in the U.S. in 2026 (Maine might be one, at least), specifically with federally controlled forecast markets making complex things with their nationwide kind of de facto sports betting.

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

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

Nevertheless, there are numbers that suggest Alberta would be a concern for the online gaming industry even if it were just one of lots of new jurisdictions set to launch. The province has the prospective to create lots of iGaming profits for both personal operators and the province. That's why brand names like DraftKings, Betway, and BetRivers are lining up to join its regulated market.

So just how much would Alberta really be worth?

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

Ontario released its competitive iGaming market in April 2022, and there are now around 50 operators and more than 80 sites offering online sports wagering, iCasino, poker, and bingo.

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

(Quick aside: We're mainly speaking about revenue in this post, not overall wagering or "handle." As the Ontario numbers suggest, 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 pointed out here is what's left over after paying those winners.)

Some juicy stats

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

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

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

There are some cautions to the above worth keeping in mind. For beginners, this is based on bets tracked using Juice Reel. Moreover, anybody using a bet-tracking app like Juice Reel is probably a notch or 2 above the most recreational of bettors.

Juice Reel's information likewise consists of offshore and provincially regulated books, along with everyday dream websites. However, not each and every single book that Alberta and Ontario wagerers might be utilizing is recorded 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 appropriately: https://t.co/1R5ZCywuHk @Covers

Still, Juice Reel kept in mind the data recommends similarities in between Alberta and Ontario. However, the previous has yet to implement an Ontario-like iGaming design and authorize a few of the operators present just in Ontario at the minute.

Ontario is likewise Canada's most populated province, with a population of around 16 million. It's not likely Alberta and its around five-million-strong people will produce the same numbers. Still, simply the rough population math alone hints that Alberta could be worth around a 3rd of what Ontario is doing. That would imply around $460 million in iGaming-related earnings in Year 1.

That would be just to begin. There is evidence that the average Albertan might out-gamble the average Ontarian too.

Anecdotally, you might indicate Albertans' intense love affair with the Edmonton Oilers' "50/50" raffle, which has raised numerous countless dollars for charity. You could also indicate research study by Statistics Canada revealing the typical yearly wage in Alberta is roughly $30,000 higher than in Ontario.

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

How Alberta's currently playing

Furthermore, there are financials you might parse from Alberta's only authorized iGaming operator at the minute. Those could be used to try to predict the general size of the province's online gambling market.

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

That revenue flowed from "5 unique video gaming experiences" offered by means of the AGLC's Play Alberta platform: casino, "immediate" games, live dealer games, lotto, and online sports wagering.

The bulk of Play Alberta's online gaming profits originates from cash gamblers lose playing casino-style video games, which accounted for 73.1% of net sales for the most recently reported year, or $197.3 million. Sports wagering, on the other hand, generated the least for Play Alberta of all of its verticals, producing just shy of $8 million in net sales, or 3% of the total.

This, however, only captures part of the existing market for online gaming in Alberta. It's estimated that the bulk of internet-based wagering occurs with companies that might be controlled abroad or outside the province, but not by the province itself.

This so-called "grey" or "black" market is making the lion's share of service from Alberta's online bettors. The robust and "uncontrolled" market is arguably the primary reason Alberta is releasing a regulated iGaming market in the very first location - to attempt to catch that activity.

"Unregulated online gaming is currently commonly offered across the province, with some providers operating with limited or no gamer security or social obligation measures," the provincial federal government says. "Based upon recent survey data, uncontrolled operators are estimated to record approximately 70% of Alberta's overall iGaming market."

This suggests Play Alberta accounts for around 30% of iGaming-related income being generated in the province. That would also suggest the general size of Alberta's online gaming market is somewhere in the ballpark of $900 million in annual income.

It's a pretty loose estimate, 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 simply 30% of the overall addressable market, that indicates another $630 million is being earned somewhere else.

(The Alberta federal government stated just recently that Play Alberta created $275 million in net sales over the previous year, which the platform is estimated to capture just around 23% to 32% of the province's total iGaming market. But, for the functions 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 suggests a lot more upside for Alberta.

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

"If (an Ontario-like iGaming) model was introduced from the start of 2025, that might bring around $400m in taxable sports betting (gross gaming revenue) back onshore during 2025-28 on current offshore market forecasts," the report said. "However, a regulated business market would likewise be expected to grow the total market and the true taxable GGR capacity is for that reason expected to be greater."

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

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

This additional revenue for the controlled market would be simply connected to online sports betting. It does not even consist of iCasino, which the Play Alberta figures recommend would make up the bulk of iGaming income. Play Alberta's online sportsbook is only providing a low single-digit share of its profits too.

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

Another 2024 research study, done by analysts at financial investment bank Citizens, forecast Alberta's iGaming market could eventually be worth more than US$ 700 million in revenue a year.

That US$ 700 million would work out to around $950 million in Canadian currency. This would make it similar in size to Arizona's sports betting market, which produced $713.8 million in gross earnings in 2015.