How Ontario’s Online Gambling Market Has Evolved

In four years, Canada’s biggest province went from one government betting website to a market worth almost $100 billion in wagers a year. Here is what changed, how the system works, and what the 2026 World Cup in Toronto revealed about football betting.

Before April 2022, Ontario had only one legal place to gamble online: a website run by the provincial government. Today, players in Canada’s most populous province can choose from more than 80 licensed sites run by around 48 private companies, and in 2025 alone they wagered almost $100 billion with them.

For football fans, this change matters more than it first appears. Ontario’s model now shapes how other Canadian provinces regulate betting, how sportsbooks advertise around big matches, and how the 2026 FIFA World Cup was bet on in a host city. This guide explains what the market looked like before 2022, how the new system works, what the numbers show and what could change next. All figures are in Canadian dollars.

Before 2022: One Legal Option and a Large Grey Market

In Canada, gambling falls under the federal Criminal Code, which lets each province conduct and manage gaming. For decades, Ontario’s legal online offer came only from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG). Its sports product only allowed parlays, where you combine several games in one bet. Betting on a single match, such as one Premier League fixture, was not allowed anywhere in Canada.

Many Ontarians simply went elsewhere. Offshore “grey market” sites accepted Canadian players without a provincial licence. Before Ontario’s launch, the Canadian Gaming Association estimated that Canadians bet about $4 billion a year through grey-market offshore sites and around $10 billion through illegal bookmakers. The provincial regulator itself said most online gambling by Ontarians happened on sites the province did not manage.

The Turning Point: Single-Event Betting and the 2022 Launch

The first big change came from Ottawa. Bill C-218, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, received royal assent on June 29, 2021, and single-event betting became legal on August 27, 2021. From that day, Ontarians could legally bet on the result of one football match through OLG’s upgraded sports betting platform, PROLINE+.

The second change was Ontario’s own. The province announced in April 2019 that it planned to end OLG’s online monopoly. On July 6, 2021, it created iGaming Ontario (iGO) as a subsidiary of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). On April 4, 2022, the market opened, making Ontario the first Canadian province with an open, regulated online gambling market.

How the Ontario model works

Ontario uses a two-part system. The AGCO is the regulator: it registers operators and sets and enforces the rules on advertising, game integrity and player protection. iGO is the commercial manager: private companies sign an operating agreement with it and offer games on the province’s behalf. This allows private brands while still meeting the Criminal Code rule that the province conducts and manages gaming.

Each operator pays an annual regulatory fee of $100,000 per gaming site and shares 20% of its gaming revenue with the province. In return, it gets legal access to a province of roughly 15 million people, under one set of standards that applies to every licensed brand. Players must be 19 or older.

The market filled up quickly. By April 12, 2022, 13 operators with 21 gaming sites had signed agreements and registered. During the 2022-23 year, the AGCO helped 45 operators launch, including 33 that moved over from the unregulated market.

Key Milestones at a Glance

Date	Milestone
April 2019	Ontario announces plans to open its online gambling market
July 6, 2021	iGaming Ontario created as a subsidiary of the AGCO
August 27, 2021	Single-event sports betting becomes legal in Canada
April 4, 2022	Ontario’s regulated online gambling market opens
February 28, 2024	Athletes banned from Ontario online gambling ads
May 12, 2025	iGO becomes a standalone provincial agency
November 12, 2025	Ontario Court of Appeal backs international player pools
May 14, 2026	BetGuard centralized self-exclusion goes live
June 11 to July 19, 2026	FIFA World Cup, with six matches in Toronto
July 13, 2026	Alberta opens Canada’s second competitive market
October 7, 2026	Supreme Court of Canada hears the player-pool appeal

The Numbers: From $162 Million to Over $4 Billion a Year

Growth since launch has been steep. In its first partial quarter, April 4 to June 30, 2022, the market took just over $4 billion in wagers and produced $162 million in gaming revenue. In April 2022, the opening month, operators handled about $1.08 billion in wagers.

By the 2024-25 fiscal year (April to March), wagers reached $82.7 billion and gaming revenue $3.2 billion, up 31% and 32% on the year before. Calendar year 2025 went further, with about $98.3 billion wagered, just over $4.0 billion in revenue, and 1.267 million active player accounts by December.

The fourth fiscal year, April 2025 to March 2026, passed $103 billion in wagers and $4.2 billion in revenue, according to iGO. Records continued into 2026. July set a new monthly high of $9.88 billion wagered and $413.6 million in revenue. In August, wagers slipped to $9.74 billion, but revenue of $396.3 million was still 18.4% higher than a year earlier.

Period	Wagers	Gaming revenue
April 4 to June 30, 2022	$4.0 billion	$162 million
Fiscal 2024-25	$82.7 billion	$3.2 billion
Calendar 2025	$98.3 billion	$4.0 billion
Fiscal 2025-26	Over $103 billion	Over $4.2 billion
July 2026 (record month)	$9.88 billion	$413.6 million

Source: iGaming Ontario. Figures are unaudited and exclude OLG’s own online offering.

For the province, the money is significant. Based on the 20% revenue share, the 2025 results point to about $807 million for Ontario, and estimated tax revenue since launch passed $2 billion by the end of that year.

Just as important for regulators is where people play. An Ipsos study commissioned by iGO and the AGCO, released in May 2026, found that more than nine out of ten Ontarians who gamble online now choose regulated sites. Moving players away from offshore operators was the main reason the market was opened.

Casino Leads, Sports Betting Follows

The headline numbers hide an important detail for sports fans: Ontario is mainly an online casino market. Slots, table games and live dealer games regularly take around 87% to 89% of all money wagered. In April 2026, for example, casino accounted for $8.14 billion of the $9.31 billion wagered and about 77% of revenue.

Sports betting is smaller but steady, usually around $1 billion in wagers a month. In 2024-25 it took $11.4 billion in bets, up 17%, and $724 million in revenue. Because sportsbooks keep a bigger share of each bet than casino games, betting produced about 21% of revenue in April 2026 from only 11% of the money wagered.

Online poker is the smallest part, at around 1% of revenue. One reason is that Ontario poker is ring-fenced: players can only sit at tables with other people in the province, which means smaller games and prize pools than on international sites.

Football and the 2026 World Cup Effect

Football has been one of Ontario’s main betting sports from the start. In the market’s first fiscal year, 2022-23, iGO data showed basketball took 29% of sports betting handle, with soccer second at 15% and American football third at 13%. Hockey, Canada’s national sport, had just 9%.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup gave the clearest picture yet of football’s pull. Toronto Stadium, better known as BMO Field and the home of Toronto FC, hosted six matches. They included Canada’s opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12, the first men’s World Cup match ever played on Canadian soil.

Ontario’s sports betting handle reached $1.033 billion in June 2026. In June 2024 and June 2025, it had been almost flat at $766 million and $768 million, so the jump of about 34% came largely with the tournament. Active player accounts also rose above 1.3 million, up roughly 30% year on year.

iGO does not publish figures by sport, but operators shared their own. Covers reported that Caesars said the July 19 final, which Spain won 1-0 against Argentina, beat its previous record for handle on a single soccer match by more than 65%. BetMGM said the final became its most-bet soccer event ever. These figures cover each company’s wider North American business, not only Ontario.

Betting cooled once the tournament ended. Sports handle fell to $992 million in July and $843 million in August, and August sports revenue was 9.6% lower than a year earlier, while casino revenue rose 25.4%. The pattern suggests that big football tournaments bring in new customers, while casino games generate most of the long-term revenue.

Tighter Rules as the Market Matured

Athletes removed from adverts

The open market’s first months brought a wave of betting adverts, many featuring stars such as Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid. After a 2023 consultation, the AGCO banned active and retired athletes from Ontario online gambling ads from February 28, 2024, except to promote responsible gambling. Celebrities, influencers and cartoon figures likely to appeal to minors are also restricted. The rule applies to footballers just as much as to hockey players.

One-step self-exclusion

On May 14, 2026, iGO launched BetGuard, a centralized self-exclusion system for anyone aged 19 or older. Instead of blocking themselves on each site one by one, players can now exclude themselves from every regulated site in a single step. Operators must still run their own self-exclusion tools and promote BetGuard alongside them.

A new structure for iGO

iGO also changed status. Under the iGaming Ontario Act, it stopped being an AGCO subsidiary and became a standalone provincial agency on May 12, 2025. The change separates the commercial manager of the market more clearly from the regulator that polices it.

What Comes Next for Ontario

The biggest open question is international player pools. In February 2024, Ontario asked its Court of Appeal whether its players could legally compete against people in other countries. On November 12, 2025, the court said yes in a 4-1 decision, as long as Ontario keeps control of the games. Provincial lottery corporations appealed, and the Supreme Court of Canada heard the case on October 7, 2026. Nothing changes for players until it rules.

Ontario also no longer stands alone. Alberta opened Canada’s second competitive market on July 13, 2026, with 22 sites from 15 operators live on the first day and a centralized self-exclusion system in place from the start. Many brands familiar to Ontario players now operate in both provinces, and Alberta followed the Ontario model in most of its design.

What Four Years Have Shown

In just over four years, Ontario has moved from a government monopoly and a large grey market to one of North America’s biggest regulated online gambling markets. Monthly wagers are now around nine times higher than in April 2022, the province earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and the large majority of players use licensed sites.

For football fans, 2026 showed both sides of the story. A home World Cup pushed sports betting past $1 billion in a month, yet casino games still drive most of the growth. With stricter advertising rules, BetGuard now live and a Supreme Court decision still to come, the market’s next stage looks set to be shaped as much by regulation as by expansion.