Alberta has taken its most decisive step in months towards launching commercial online casino and sports betting by introducing the legislation that outlines how the province would regulate the market.

Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally introduced the anticipated Bill 48 on Wednesday. The iGaming Alberta Act would create the new Alberta iGaming Corporation to oversee the proposed private-sector market, which would see commercial operators compete with Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis’ (AGLC) Play Alberta platform.

Nally had been tasked with providing a plan to offer regulated commercial online gambling by Premier Danielle Smith. He already confirmed last year that a new conduct-and-manage entity would be established separately from the AGLC to run the industry.

The iGaming Alberta Act would “designate AGLC as the regulator to ensure market integrity and compliance,” stated a government release. So, the crown corporation would be both Play Alberta’s operator and the market’s regulator, while the Alberta iGaming Corporation would be the conduct-and-manage entity, similar to the role iGaming Ontario (iGO) plays in that province.

The government stressed that “AGLC has a strong history of being responsible for regulating and protecting the integrity of Alberta’s gaming activities” and added that establishing the Alberta iGaming Corporation provides “a clear separation of responsibilities” between the new agency and AGLC.

Bringing competition under oversight

The government’s release noted that Play Alberta already has competition from unregulated platforms that offer gambling to Albertans.

Last year, AGLC publicly estimated that Play Alberta holds around 45% of Alberta’s online gambling market. Other estimates say it is much lower. Data provided to Canadian Gaming Business by market research firm H2 Gambling Capital suggested that the government-run platform has never held more than 30% of Alberta’s online gambling market (not including lottery games) and had captured around 28% as of the end of FY24.

Although Nally stressed that regulating iGaming “is not a cash grab,” the provincial government reiterated in its statement that regulating online gaming will allow it to capture revenues currently being lost to unregulated operators and reinvest them in the province. That has been cited as a key motivation of allowing private-sector gambling by first Ontario’s government and now Alberta’s.

Protecting Albertan gamblers

As well as generating revenue for the province and quashing the grey market, other key goals in Alberta include broadening consumer choice and protecting players by ensuring that consumer safeguards and supports are in place.

“Our goal is not to create new gamblers, but to make existing online gambling safer,” said Nally in a statement. “It’s a simple case of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ We know this because they told us that. We know there are responsible operators that want to be part of a safer, more responsible gambling ecosystem, and we know there are illicit operators that don’t want to.”

The iGaming Alberta Act provides for several safeguards, including establishing a centralized self-exclusion system that allows all Albertan gamblers to limit their access to all online platforms with one click. iGO is developing its own such platform with Integrity Compliance 360 (IC360) and IXUP.

Alberta’s government will also continue to promote responsible gaming through existing programs such as British Columbia Lottery Corporation’s (BCLC) GameSense.

“We are fully supportive of a model that has proven to generate new revenue, protect consumers and shift wagering activity to the regulated market, and we’re confident that these benefits will be realized in Alberta,” said Adam Kates, VP of compliance at Canadian gaming and sports brand theScore, in the government’s release. “We look forward to supporting the process ahead and ultimately having an opportunity to introduce theScore Bet to Albertans.”

Jay Snowden, CEO of theScore Bet’s parent company PENN Entertainment, has said he expects Alberta to be a top-four market for the parent company in terms of online gaming revenue.

Timeline is uncertain

Bill 48 must still pass in the Alberta legislature and be enacted. How long that takes is the first question. Smith’s United Conservative Party has a parliamentary majority, but much discussion and potential amendments may lie ahead.

Even once it passes, there could still be a long runway.

Gaming operators have been pushing their projections back into 2026 and Canadian Gaming Association president and CEO Paul Burns suggested this month that up to a year from now could be realistic. Nally said on Wednesday that “later on this year or even early next year” are possibilities.

Other questions to be answered including where the tax rate is set and, ultimately, how many commercial brands are allowed in. Ontario’s private-sector market has 49 online gaming operators running 83 different websites at the time of writing.