Canada’s online gambling market is the third-largest in the world. It generated approximately CAD 13.15 billion in 2025, growing faster than virtually any other country. By the metrics the industry tends to reach for, it is a success story.

Unfortunately, where many of the metrics that matter for player protection are concerned, the story is different. Unlike several other countries, Canada has no national self-exclusion register and no national licensing framework.

While Ontario is regulated, and there is a lot of excitement around Alberta opening its regulated market this summer, the overwhelming majority of online gambling in the country still happens on unlicensed platforms.

An Ontario or Alberta player who self-excludes still can gamble through offshore sites or outside the province. Canada has no single stop button.

Key Findings

• Canada has no national self-exclusion register, no national licensing framework, and the last national survey predates the legalisation of single-event sports betting.
• Offshore leakage outside Ontario ranges from 49% to 93% by province. The offshore market grew at 40% year-on-year in 2025.
• Ontario has a 91.1% channelisation rate, but 20.2% of players also play on unregulated sites.
• Player awareness of RG tools in Ontario stands at 65.4%, according to iGO’s own Leger survey baseline. No province publishes data on actual tool uptake rates.
• A CMAJ study found gambling helpline contacts in Ontario rose 198% after market privatisation, concentrated almost entirely in men aged 15 to 44.

A Fragmented System

Canada’s gambling framework is a product of its constitution. Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act distribute authority to the provinces, and Section 207 of the Criminal Code permits them to conduct and manage lottery schemes within their own borders. A 1985 federal-provincial agreement completed the transfer, leaving Ottawa without a gambling regulator and the country without national standards of any kind.

The result is ten parallel regimes, all operating at different standards. Ontario operates an open market, and Alberta is building a similar structure. Every other province runs a government monopoly: BCLC’s PlayNow, Loto-Quebec’s Espace-jeux, and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation.

The issue is that there is no connection between these. A responsible gambling tool in one province has no power in another. A self-exclusion registered in Ontario does not block a player from gambling elsewhere.

Changes do not appear to be on the horizon, with no federal legislation on those issues currently before Parliament.

The Offshore Risks

The Blask 2025 USA and Canada iGaming Landscape Report highlights the scale of this problem. Saskatchewan carries an estimated 93% offshore leakage rate. Alberta and Manitoba sit at 88%. Quebec, where Loto-Quebec has operated since 2010, holds only around 17% of a market estimated at CAD 2.3 billion.

Even British Columbia, with years of PlayNow operations behind it, retains approximately 49-51% of its online market, according to Blask’s reports. Offshore platforms grew at 40% year-on-year in 2025, nearly double the 23% growth of domestic licensed operators.

Ontario’s Success and Limits

Ontario deserves genuine credit for its current position, and it is often hailed as an example of a strong regulatory market.

The regulated market generated CAD 82.7 billion in wagers and CAD 2.9 billion in gross gaming revenue in FY2024/25. Channelisation, measured by the share of online gamblers using regulated platforms, reached 83.7% in early 2025 and 91.1% on the most recent IPSOS survey.

However, the Ontario story is often viewed as the national story, and this is not the case. Even within the province, 20.2% of players using regulated platforms also gamble on unregulated sites.

BetGuard, launched in May 2026, finally delivered the centralised self-exclusion system that the market should have had from day one, allowing a player to exclude from all regulated platforms at once.

The early take-up numbers show more than 500 people registered for BetGuard in its first two weeks. That is not a negligible start, and iGaming Ontario has stated it will measure the platform’s success by renewal rates, term lengths selected, and connections to addiction support services.

However, Ontario’s market has 1.235 million active player accounts. The gap between the scale of the regulated market and the early uptake of the tool is wide.

The deeper problem is that BetGuard is province-bound. A player who is excluded in Ontario is not blocked elsewhere.

Many other countries have solved this problem. GAMSTOP in the UK covers all licensed remote operators under a single registration. Spelpaus in Sweden does the same across online and land-based channels. BetStop in Australia covers approximately 150 licensed wagering providers with a five-minute sign-up.

Canada has no equivalent, and there is currently no route to making one.

What the Evidence Says

The academic case for nationally coordinated self-exclusion is strong. A comparative review of self-exclusion programmes across multiple jurisdictions found that the reach and enforcement of any scheme vary directly with how completely it covers the market.

A review of BCLC’s voluntary self-exclusion programme found that 97% of participants who gambled while excluded did so at venues not covered by their agreement. The exclusion worked where it applied, but not beyond that.

The tool-uptake literature is equally sobering. Studies analysing voluntary deposit-limit setting across large player populations find uptake rates in the low single digits over three-month periods. Ontario does not publish equivalent figures, but iGO’s own Leger survey in 2024 found that only 65.4% of regulated players were aware of available RG tools.

The gap between knowing a tool exists and using it is consistently wide, and no regulator publishes data on actual tool engagement rates. That absence is itself a significant accountability problem.

Where public health data does exist, it is alarming. British Columbia’s 2025/26 prevalence study found that 35% of past-year online gamblers showed moderate or high-risk behaviour.

The most striking recent evidence comes from a January 2026 CMAJ study analysing contacts with Ontario’s ConnexOntario helpline over thirteen years.

The study found that gambling-related contacts increased from a monthly rate of 13.4 per million before online gambling launched, to 17.0 after PlayOLG’s introduction, to 26.2 following the market opening in April 2022.

The increases occurred almost exclusively in adolescent boys and men aged 15 to 44, with the 15-to-24 age group estimated to have seen contacts rise by 337.8%.

A regulated market that generates record-breaking wagers and a near-200% increase in gambling-related helpline contacts simultaneously is simply demonstrating that market growth and player protection are not the same thing.

The Future

Alberta’s launch will introduce centralised self-exclusion from day one, requiring all registered operators to integrate with AGLC’s self-exclusion programme as a condition of registration.

This is a huge step in the right direction, but, like BetGuard, it will still be province-bound.

The case for a shared register is strong. Licensed operators are also competing with offshore threats. A functioning national self-exclusion infrastructure, combined with the channelisation benefits that a well-regulated market delivers, serves their commercial interests as directly as it serves players’ welfare.

If Canada is going to solve its responsible gambling issues, it needs to admit that the fragmented framework has shortcomings in customer care and stop using Ontario’s success as a stand-in for the country as a whole.