CasinoCanada’s new executive roundtable on Alberta’s first months of regulated iGaming cast channelization as the test of whether Canada’s second competitive provincial market succeeds.
The discussion brought together Robert Kowalski of Kiron, Chris Reid of 1X2 Network and Adam Pentecost of Gaming Corps. It examined Alberta’s opportunities and constraints alongside Ontario’s more established market, including the implications for operators, suppliers and the wider Canadian iGaming business. GameOn facilitated the interview.
Participants described early growth in turnover, gross gaming revenue, active players and average bet. It also identified content differentiation as an increasingly important issue as the Alberta market develops.
Kowalski said Alberta offered the industry a second market through which to assess “what carries across provinces and what does not.” Ontario had shown that a regulated model could operate at scale, he said, while Alberta would test how well that model could travel.
Pentecost said a successful outcome would be for Alberta to become a standard element of operators’ Canadian plans, rather than a market treated as secondary to Ontario. The group framed the central measure as channelization: shifting players from unregulated sites into licensed provincial platforms.
As we reported in August, Alberta iGaming Corporation had described the market’s first month as encouraging while maintaining a 75% channelization goal by the end of its second year.
That target reflects the province’s stated purpose for opening the market on July 13. Alberta had estimated that about 70% of online gambling previously took place on unregulated websites, with about 30% occurring on PlayAlberta. The province aims for regulated operators to capture 70% of online gambling activity by July 2027 and 75% by the end of the second year, while Alberta iGaming Corporation chief executive Dan Keene has said the province could exceed its initial projections.
Alberta’s competitive system made it the second Canadian province, after Ontario, to admit private online gambling operators under provincial oversight. Ontario launched its own regulated market in April 2022; industry estimates put its channelization rate at roughly 90%, while survey data indicated it had exceeded 80% in its second year.
The framework was created through Bill 48, passed in spring 2025, which introduced the iGaming Alberta Act and assigned market operations to the Alberta iGaming Corporation and regulation to Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis. The rules require operators to identify and intervene in high-risk behaviour, offer financial and time limits, and participate in a centralized self-exclusion system spanning land-based and regulated online gambling.
