2023 was a great year for the Ontario igaming industry as a whole, and while online poker remains just a small fraction of that, it too has achieved new highs and set new records in the final quarter of 2023 (Q3 of the fiscal year 2023/24).
Reports from the province’s gaming regulator iGaming Ontario (iGO) indicate that the six Ontario online poker operators have generated C$17 million in revenue while players have placed C$431 million in total wagers, with both figures representing a new high for Ontario online poker.
Along with the increase in total wagers and revenue, online poker operators in Ontario also showed a huge spike in active player accounts, which was partially responsible for the increase in total wagers as well.
Usual Suspects at the Top as GGPoker and PokerStars Lead the Way
The big question, of course, is which operators are doing best and contributing the most to the steady growth of online poker in Ontario, but the answer to that question is not clear.
At this time, iGO does not supply reports broken down by operator but rather reports on the overall revenue and wagering numbers for the entire market, split by verticals (casino, sports betting, and poker).
For that reason, the report itself does not help us understand which operators are contributing what, although there are other means to get to the bottom of things.
A look at the concurrent cash game players stat, which is tracked by GameIntel, is probably the best metric for this, and according to a pokerfuse report, GGPoker Ontario (also known as WSOP Ontario) leads the way.
Concurrent cash game players stat for Q3 showed that GGPoker ON had the highest number with 281, followed by PokerStars ON with 253, BetMGM ON Network with 74, and 888poker with just 29.
Using these stats, pokerfuse broke down the number of C$17 million in overall revenue and predicted that each operator acquired approximately the following revenues:
- GGPoker Ontario: C$7.5 Million
- PokerStars Ontario: C$6.8 Million
- BetMGM Ontario: C$2 Million
- 888poker Ontario: C$782.000
Note that these numbers are not official and don’t represent the real revenue acquired by either operator, but they should be fairly close to the right numbers, considering that the vast majority of all operator revenue comes from cash game tables.
The dominance of GGPoker ON and PokerStars On comes as no surprise, as the two also continually lead the way in US online poker and international online poker alike.
Ontario iGaming Continues to Thrive
While Ontario online poker experienced significant growth in Q3 of the current fiscal year (a 9% increase compared to Q2), other online gaming verticals have also seen a significant uptick.
The C$431 million in wagers made at the poker tables is a drop in the sea compared to the C$3.1 billion from sports betting and C$13.7 billion from online casino games.
When it comes to revenue, online casinos contributed C$471 million, sports betting sites C$171 million, and online poker added C$17 million to the equation.
A large increase in active player accounts across the gaming platforms in Ontario was also of note, as 1.2 million active accounts were registered in Q3, compared to just 943,000 one quarter earlier.
Any account with real money or promotional activity on it is considered in this metric.
Consequently, each active player in Ontario spent an average of C$186 a month on igaming during Q3, some five dollars less than Q2 and $19 less year-over-year. However, a significantly increased number of active accounts leads directly to higher overall spend and higher revenues for the operators.
