Fact-based journalism that sparks the Canadian conversation

Articles Business Environment Health Politics Arts & Culture Society

Special Series Hope You’re Well For the Love of the Game Living Rooms In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration Terra Cognita More special series >

For the Love of the Game

In Other Worlds: A Space Exploration

More special series >

Events The Walrus Talks The Walrus Video Room The Walrus Leadership Roundtables The Walrus Leadership Forums Article Club

The Walrus Video Room

The Walrus Leadership Roundtables

The Walrus Leadership Forums

Subscribe Renew your subscription Change your address Magazine Issues Newsletters Podcasts

Renew your subscription

The Walrus Lab Hire The Walrus Lab Amazon First Novel Award

Amazon First Novel Award

Inside Ontario’s Regulated Online Casino Boom

document.getElementsByClassName("cat-links")[0].innerHTML = 'In Partnership with Moonbound Ltd.';

Four years ago, most Canadians who played casino games online did so on sites with no ties to any Canadian regulator at all. That’s changed faster than most people realize. Ontario’s regulated internet gaming market, launched in April 2022, has grown into one of the largest legal online gambling markets in North America — and the numbers behind that growth say a lot about how quickly consumer behaviour shifts once a legitimate, well-lit option shows up.

The Numbers Behind Ontario’s iGaming Market

From Grey Market to Regulated Industry

In its annual fiscal 2024-25 report, iGaming Ontario put total wagers at $82.7 billion and gross gaming revenue at $2.9 billion, a jump of over 30 percent in both figures from the previous year. That’s the market’s third full year of operation, and the growth curve hasn’t flattened yet. Casino games, not sports betting, make up the bulk of it — about 84 percent of total wagers, according to the same report.

Who’s Actually Playing

Maybe the more interesting figure is behavioural: a 2026 Ipsos study commissioned by iGaming Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) found that 91.1 percent of Ontarians who gamble online now do so through regulated operators, leaving a shrinking minority still playing on unlicensed offshore sites. That’s the real story of Ontario’s experiment — it didn’t just create a new industry, it pulled an existing one out of the shadows. Operators such as LuckyCasino now run under full AGCO oversight, with licensing, identity verification, and responsible-gambling tools built into the product rather than bolted on as an........

© The Walrus