As always, iGO’s October reporting did not include Ontario iGaming wagers placed with the government-run Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG), which is expected to report its full-year results for April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, before the end of the month.
Ontario’s regulated iGaming market broke the $8 billion barrier for the first time in May. Five months later, Ontario iGaming wagering exceeded $9 billion as the market set a new all-time monthly record in October.
iGaming Ontario (iGO) data for October showed that the total value of all cash wagers placed via Ontario’s 50 licensed operators last month was more than $9.2 billion, a new watermark for a market that continues to grow and grow as it approaches its fourth anniversary.
That handle total was up 8% from September’s previous record of $8.5 billion and a 24% year-over-year jump from October 2024.
The increase was aided by a rise in the number of active player accounts, which hit an all-time high of almost 1.3 million, up 9% from the previous record of 1.2 million in September and 36% higher than this time last year.
Not only did Ontarians wager more than ever before last month, but licensed operators made more money than ever before. Non-adjusted gross gaming revenue soared 38% from October 2024 to hit $367.7 million, also a new all-time record by a distance. The previous high mark was $338 million in May 2025. This time last year, operators’ combined earnings were $266 million.
The near-1.3 million active accounts generated an average revenue of $286 for online casinos and sportsbooks.
Blue Jays and busy sports calendar fuel record sports spending
Online casino continues to account for 85% of total Ontario iGaming wagering, setting another new all-time record of $7.9 billion in handle, up 26% YOY. Ontario’s dozens of online casino sites together reaped $303.8 million in NAGGR (guess what: another new record), a total purse that was up a massive 43% from this time last year.
Sports betting, though, had a banner month, at least in terms of online gambling activity.
As the Toronto Blue Jays contested Canada’s first World Series in three decades and the return of the NHL and NBA clogged up the sporting calendar, Ontarians bet more money on sports than they did any month before.
iGO reported a total of more than $1.2 billion in sports betting handle in October, up 17% from the same month in 2024 and a new monthly record.
But sportsbooks told Canadian Gaming Business in late October that they were suffering from Ontario bettors backing Canada’s MLB team on their run to the Fall Classic, and the record sports betting handle wasn’t reflected in operators’ winnings. From that $1.2 billion in wagers, Ontario’s licensed sportsbooks made a shade over $58 million in gross gaming revenue. That total was 20% higher than last year, and up from September’s all-time low of $47 million, but lower than operators earned from online sports betting in January, February, April, May or August.
Ontario had 50 licensed commercial operators in the market for most of October, running a total of 88 iGaming sites. Those numbers have since fallen to 48 and 82, respectively, as Wildz Group completed the shutdown of its four sites and the Aristocrat Interactive white-labeled Betiton and MagicRed Casino also stopped doing business in the province.
Peer-to-peer poker stagnant… but not forever?
As always, Ontario’s ring-fenced peer-to-peer poker activity made up a tiny sliver of the total iGaming activity. The P2P poker handle of $131 million was just 1.4% of the total handle, and gross revenue from the vertical was just $5.6 million.
That may change eventually. Last week, the Ontario Court of Appeal’s long-awaited judgment opined that it would be legal for Ontario to expand its online poker and daily fantasy sports (DFS) markets beyond its borders by allowing Ontario players to compete with users in other countries in P2P play.
Actually implementation of such a model could take years, but the legal opinion cleared the way for iGO and Canada gaming stakeholders to begin pursuing a multi-jurisdictional model for online poker.
