Ontario’s open iGaming market is no longer an experiment. Four years after launch, the province says more than nine out of ten respondents who gambled online reported using regulated sites. The market also produced more than C$4.2 billion in gaming revenue from over C$103 billion in wagering activity between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026.
Those are large numbers, and iGaming Ontario identifies them as unaudited and subject to adjustment. But the more useful signal is that the province’s policy agenda has moved from opening the channel to governing it at scale.
Channelization is improving — with an important footnote
The 2026 Ipsos study commissioned by iGaming Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario found that 91.1 per cent of respondents who gambled online reported doing so on regulated sites. That was 7.4 percentage points higher than the previous year’s 83.7 per cent. Respondents reporting play only on unregulated sites fell from 16.3 per cent to 8.9 per cent.
Channelization studies are essential, but they need careful reading. The headline describes the share of surveyed gamblers reporting regulated-site use; it does not by itself say that 91.1 per cent of every dollar, session or minute of play occurred there. A person can use both regulated and unregulated platforms. The study is best understood as a strong indicator of reach and recognition, not a complete transaction ledger.
BetGuard turns self-exclusion into market infrastructure
Ontario launched BetGuard on May 14, 2026. The tool lets a person aged 19 or older opt out of every regulated online gaming platform in the province through one portal, including OLG’s offer. A participant can choose six months, one year, five years or a custom term.
The design closes an obvious gap in a market with many brands: exclusion from one site is incomplete if the same person can immediately open or continue using accounts elsewhere. BetGuard is intended to block access to existing accounts, prevent creation of new accounts and stop direct marketing from regulated operators during the exclusion period.
Centralization changes the operational burden. Identity matching, data quality, timely propagation and consistent customer handling become shared performance questions. The launch is therefore the beginning of the system’s real test, not the end.
Monthly reporting raises the standard
iGaming Ontario replaced its former quarterly release cycle with an ingestible monthly market-performance report. The dataset covers operators with trading activity under an iGO operating agreement, while excluding OLG’s iGaming product and pari-mutuel horse-racing wagers. It is updated with a lag and carries the appropriate unaudited-data warning.
That format is more than a communications upgrade. Regular, machine-readable reporting lets observers separate seasonal movement from structural growth and compare casino, betting and peer-to-peer poker categories with greater discipline. It also makes revisions visible.
A mature market should not be measured only by how much activity it attracts. It should also be measured by how clearly it reports that activity and how consistently its protections work across brands.
Ontario’s next benchmark
The province’s first chapter was about moving an existing online market under regulation. Its next chapter should focus on the quality of that regulated experience. Useful public measures would include BetGuard enrolment and system performance, complaint resolution, intervention outcomes, advertising enforcement, use of player-control tools and the proportion of activity — not just respondents — inside regulated channels.
Ontario also remains a reference point for Alberta’s new market. Comparisons will be tempting, but the two provinces differ in population, minimum age, operator mix and launch context. Good comparison will normalize those differences and look beyond headline revenue.
Primary sources
Reporting method: figures and program details were checked against iGaming Ontario releases and reports available on August 17, 2026. Figures described by iGO as unaudited retain that qualification.