Quebec’s Oct. 5 election has put a regulated private online-gambling market back on the political agenda after the Parti Québécois won 59 of the legislature’s 127 seats, five short of a majority. The Quebec Liberal Party took 40 seats to become Official Opposition, while the Coalition Avenir Québec was shut out.
The result matters for iGaming because both leading parties campaigned for a move away from Loto-Québec’s single-operator model. PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said during the campaign that his party would adopt the Liberals’ online-gambling proposal, creating potential cross-party support in a minority legislature.
As reported in September, Liberal leader Charles Milliard had proposed provincial licences for every online-gaming platform serving Quebec. His plan would expand the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux’ mandate to license and oversee platforms, with tougher rules on advertising, addiction prevention and consumer protection, and would address the regulatory gap around prediction markets.
Loto-Québec is currently Quebec’s only authorized provider of internet casino gambling and online sports betting. A competitive system would therefore require changes to provincial laws and rules, as well as a decision on the body that would regulate all operators, including Loto-Québec. Loto-Québec is not currently regulated by the RACJ.
The Quebec Online Gaming Coalition, an industry group that has lobbied for regulated private competition, said the election showed a broad consensus for licensing private operators. Ariane Gauthier of the coalition said the PQ and Liberals held enough seats between them to pass legislation, although she stressed that reform would require government and stakeholder collaboration and would not be immediate.
The coalition’s case rests in part on estimates of online activity outside the provincial system. It said Quebec’s single-operator model costs more than CAD $300 million a year in tax revenue. In a 2023 Mainstreet Research survey released by the coalition, 73% of 1,010 Quebec online players said they used privately operated sites for casino games and sports betting, compared with 26.6% who used Loto-Québec’s Espace Jeux. The survey found 67% supported licensing and taxing private operators, while 56% backed an independent regulator overseeing the full gaming offering, including Loto-Québec.
Those figures are contested by Loto-Québec, which has said 81% of Quebec online players use its platform. A separate private-sector study cited an addressable Quebec iGaming market of CAD $3.09 billion in 2026, estimating that 73% of play occurred through unregulated channels.
Ontario and Alberta are the two Canadian provinces identified in the evidence as having competitive regulated online-gambling markets. Ontario’s private market, launched in April 2022, had 49 licensed operators running 84 websites and generated CAD $4.04 billion in non-adjusted gross gaming revenue in 2025. Alberta launched its private market in July with 36 live websites.
Demand for regulated options beyond Quebec’s borders has also been visible. GeoComply data cited by Covers recorded 105,000 attempts from Quebec to access Ontario-regulated sportsbooks since the start of the 2026 NFL season. Quebec Conservatives won 19 seats; while they were not formally identified as supporters of iGaming reform, the coalition said their opposition to provincially owned monopolies could make them constructive stakeholders.
