New Brunswick’s proposed live online casino regime would be limited to Atlantic Lottery Corporation, Finance and Treasury Board Minister René Legacy has said, ruling out private operators under Bill 8. The Crown corporation would become the province’s only regulated platform for the games if the legislation and subsequent rules take effect.
As reported in October, the province was examining options for private online-gambling operators, but Legacy has now said the Gaming Control Act amendment applies only to Atlantic Lottery. The bill passed second reading on Nov. 3.
Bill 8 would give the provincial government authority to regulate live casino events online, an authority absent from the existing act. With cabinet approval, it would allow the lottery corporation to designate an interprovincial body to operate online casino games, including live-dealer products. The legislation would take effect on a date set by proclamation, while the government has said detailed regulations will be introduced later.
The live-casino proposal originated with Atlantic Lottery, which is owned by and serves the four Atlantic provinces. Live online casino games are already available through the corporation in the other three Atlantic provinces, leaving New Brunswick as the exception.
The government’s stated case is that a regulated offering could provide a safer alternative to unregulated websites while retaining money now spent outside the legal system. Atlantic Lottery estimates that about $250 million a year leaves Atlantic Canada for unregulated online gambling sites. Greg Weston of Atlantic Lottery said the corporation aims to draw players to its own platform, whose profits are returned to provincial governments; it returned $492 million to the four provinces in 2025-26.
Legacy said a regulated system could offer self-exclusion and flag early signs of problematic play so that help can be offered. The provincial government similarly said regulatory authority would enable it to create and maintain safeguards for the new format.
But Dr. Daniel Myran, a University of Toronto public-health physician who studies gambling addiction, questioned whether the new option would simply channel existing unregulated play into a legal market. He said it could also attract people who otherwise would not gamble. Myran pointed to a report he co-authored that found almost 1,000 Ontario emergency-department visits related to gambling disorders since that province introduced online gambling in 2012.
