Alberta’s first week of regulated online gambling brought a wave of sportsbook and casino brands, but not a single regulated online poker room. The poker vertical was still missing from the market after launch, even as other products moved in quickly.
According to Pokerfuse, around two dozen operators went live on July 13, including FanDuel, BetMGM, BetRivers and DraftKings, offering casino games, sports betting and other regulated products. Online poker was fully permitted under Alberta’s new rules, but no operator launched a poker offering.
That gap reflects the way the province has structured the market. Poker is ring-fenced to players physically located in Alberta, with no shared liquidity with Ontario or international pools, so the only people at the table are other Albertans. The result is a player base of about 5 million, which TheLines said is too small for providers to make money, leaving no current attempt to launch a poker site.
The same article said Alberta’s first week of online gambling nonetheless drew more than 40 sportsbook and iGaming providers. For now, however, that expansion has not reached poker.
The province’s transition rules allow operators to request a three-month extension, but only if they are registered with Alberta and can show a pathway to compliance. The Alberta iGaming factsheet says that, once operators are in the registration process, they may advertise and sign up customers, but they cannot add funds or take bets during the transition.
The factsheet also says three milestones must be completed before operators can begin taking bets: due diligence and registration with the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission, a commercial agreement with the Alberta iGaming Corporation, and notice of market launch from the corporation. It says the province will launch with a centralized self-exclusion platform, and the legislation sets an age minimum of 18 for online betting.
PokerStars offers the clearest example of the split between casino and poker. The company shut down its Alberta sportsbook and casino products on July 13 and moved players to FanDuel’s new Alberta servers, but its poker servers remained operational in the province until an Oct. 13 final deadline. After that, existing poker sites will have to cease operations in Alberta or operate under the rules then in place.
Bill 48 gives the Alberta iGaming Corporation power, subject to ministerial approval, to enter agreements with other provinces or territories, and officials are already working on an arrangement with Ontario to combine player pools for online poker and daily fantasy sports. TheLines said the corporation is expected by Oct. 13 to have reached a shared-liquidity deal with Ontario, and possibly other jurisdictions, but Pokerfuse reported that no timetable had been announced by the regulator. The issue is still unsettled, with the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling on international player pooling now before the Supreme Court of Canada for a hearing on October 7.
