Ontario’s gambling regulator says it is reviewing allegations raised by investigative reporting into ToonieBet and its parent company Soft2bet, after the Toronto Star and its reporting partners asked questions about the operator’s links to a wider casino network.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario said its Financial Investigations Unit and Licensing and Registration Branch are examining the issues identified in the reporting. It also said that, at the time ToonieBet was registered, the operator and related entities held licences in good standing in other regulated jurisdictions.
ToonieBet is registered in Ontario under Canadix Limited, a Malta-based Soft2bet company. The site itself is not accused in the reporting of operating unlicensed gambling sites.
The controversy lands in a market that has become one of North America’s largest regulated online betting systems since Ontario launched its iGaming regime in 2022. In 2024-25, 2.6 million accounts wagered $82.7 billion, sending $2.9 billion to government coffers, and the province had granted licences to more than 80 gambling sites.
Ontario’s rules require registered gambling companies to keep to the province’s responsible gaming standards, including identity verification and returning the balance of an account if a player deactivates. Until this spring, the province allowed gambling websites to handle self-exclusion themselves, before a centralized vendor selection was announced on Aug. 1.
Against that backdrop, ToonieBet’s licence renewal in March 2026 came after earlier reporting by Investigate Europe said Soft2bet and affiliated unlicensed sites had run afoul of regulators in other countries. The Star account also said an Ontario gambling addiction helpline saw surging calls in 2024, prompting calls for tighter protections.
The investigation said Soft2bet and associated companies had taken in nearly $1 billion from a global network of casino websites, many registered offshore and blacklisted or fined in other jurisdictions for operating without a licence. Soft2bet was founded in 2016 by the Ukrainian-Israeli businessman Uri Poliavich and, according to the reporting, is based in Cyprus and Malta.
The company says it has 10 million users for its software and runs several licensed betting websites, including ToonieBet. The Star reported that Soft2bet collected $245 million in profits in 2024.
The reporting traced the network through a leaked internal list of casino properties, then checked the names against corporate records, trademarks, IP-address data and other public material. It also drew on leaked internal chat messages and interviews with six former employees.
Among the sites highlighted was OnlySpins, which the reporting said was unlicensed in Ontario, did not verify users’ ages and had been blacklisted in Poland, Italy and Greece. When a reporter posed as a gambler with an addiction and asked to close an account, customer support agents said they could deactivate it but that any balance would be voided.
Former staff members described a system in which customers who wanted to close accounts because of gambling problems were often offered bonuses to stay, closures were delayed, withdrawals were slowed and some accounts were reopened without consent. A former ToonieBet player also said the company would not let him withdraw thousands of dollars in winnings until he made legal threats.
Soft2bet denied wrongdoing and said the request for comment reflected an incorrect and misleading interpretation of its business and corporate structure. It said its focus is on operating responsibly, maintaining compliance and engaging constructively with regulators where appropriate.
The AGCO has separately said Ontario’s regulated iGaming market is built on clear rules designed to protect players and hold companies accountable, while unregulated gaming sites operate outside that framework. In May, it fined Relax Gaming Limited and Arrise Solutions Limited $40,000 each after finding their games were available on unregulated gambling websites accessible to Ontario players.
