Alberta's Grace Period Ends With 51 Approved iGaming Sites and 42 Operator Registrations

Alberta's window for grey-market operators to move into the regulated market closed on 13 October, and published counts of who made it range from 29 to 51. The regulator registers companies, the Crown corporation approves sites, and the two official lists do not match.

• The Alberta iGaming Corporation's directory listed 51 approved sites on 15 October, up from 22 at the market's launch on 13 July, two days after the transition period for previously unregulated operators ended
• The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission's register holds 42 iGaming operator entries under 40 names, including the province's own Play Alberta, which is not in the AiGC directory
• Casino Reports says the 51 sites belong to 30 companies and Focus Gaming News counts 29 operators and 50 brands; the directory names sites, not companies, so neither company count can be checked against it
• At least three registered operators have no approved site, among them PointsBet, which still plans to enter Alberta later in its financial year
• Operating or advertising an iGaming site without registration carries a fine of up to CA$500,000, approximately $350,000, or up to 12 months in prison, and the AGLC warns that ignoring its transition rules may make an operator unsuitable for registration

Alberta's Deadline Passes With Two Official Lists That Count Different Things

The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) set the timetable in guidance issued on 17 March. Any operator running an unregulated lottery scheme in Alberta had to apply, pay its fees and stop taking bets by 13 July, when the regulated market opened. The AGLC said it might extend that "on a case-by-case basis" to 13 October at the latest, and warned that failing to follow the guidance "may result in a finding of unsuitability for iGaming registration in Alberta."

Alberta's model has two gates. The AGLC registers operators and regulates the market; the Alberta iGaming Corporation (AiGC), a Crown corporation, signs the operating agreements that let a registered company take bets. "As of July 13, all operators must be registered with AGLC and have signed a commercial agreement" with the AiGC, the regulator says. A registration belongs to a company; an approval attaches to a site.

We counted both lists on 15 October. The AGLC's register, exported from its website, holds 42 entries in the class "iGaming - Operator". They sit under 40 names, because Cadtree Limited appears three times, and one is Play Alberta, the AGLC's own site, which has no expiry date. That leaves 39 private companies. Thirty entries expire on 13 July 2027, which suggests registrations in place at opening; 11 came later, the most recent Stake Canada Ltd., expiring on 24 September 2027.

The AiGC's directory of registered iGaming sites listed 51 sites on the same day, including Stake, PowerPlay, 888, FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM and Caesars. At launch the AiGC said 22 sites had been approved.

Why the Published Counts Differ

Casino Reports said on 15 October that 51 sites from 30 companies had been registered and approved by the deadline. Focus Gaming News reported on 14 October that 29 operators and 50 brands had been approved. Our regulatory map profile records the AGLC's 42 operator registrations. The site totals match the directory to within one; the company totals cannot be verified from it.

Part of the gap between 39 registered companies and about 30 approved ones can be named. PointsBet Canada Operations 1 Inc., Kaizen Gaming Canada Inc., which runs Betano in Ontario, and GG International Limited, trading as GG Poker, are all on the AGLC register, and none of their brands is in the directory. Casino Reports says GG Poker registered in August but has not been approved, that PokerStars has left Alberta, and that 888 Poker launched on deadline day with no poker competitor in the province.

On enforcement, the AiGC told Gaming News Canada that "AGLC will be responsible for monitoring compliance and taking appropriate enforcement action against sites that continue to operate outside of the regulated deadline of October 13, 2026," according to Casino Reports. We found no AGLC release on the end of the transition.

The law gives the regulator two tools. Section 49.1 of the Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act, added by the iGaming Alberta Act in 2025, bars anyone from operating an iGaming site, or supplying goods or services for one, unless registered and working under a contract with the AiGC or the commission; section 49.41 bars an operator that must register from advertising until it has. Section 118 sets the penalty for either at up to CA$500,000, up to 12 months in prison, or both. We found no provision that names payment processors or allows sites to be blocked.

The Numbers Disagree Because They Measure Different Gates

There is no contradiction between 42, 51 and 30. Forty-two counts the companies, plus one Crown site, that have passed the AGLC's suitability gate. Fifty-one counts the sites that have also passed the AiGC's commercial gate. Thirty, or 29, is an outlet's estimate of how many companies own those sites. For players the AiGC list is the one that matters, because it shows which sites can legally take their bets. For the industry the useful number is the gap between the lists: roughly nine or ten registered companies still waiting at the second gate, or choosing not to pass through it yet.

The Deadline Bites Only on the Grey Market, and Its Teeth Are a Suitability Finding

A registered operator that has simply not launched, such as PointsBet, is not shown to be in breach of anything. The 13 October limit applies to operators that served Albertans without a licence, and for them the guidance is unconditional: stop taking bets, approved or not. The statutory fine needs a prosecution against companies often based offshore; the sharper threat is a suitability finding that would close the regulated market to an operator that kept trading. Without powers aimed at payment processors or internet providers, Alberta is relying on the lever Ontario used from 2022: make the licensed route attractive and the unlicensed one a bar to entry.

Alberta Starts Further Back Than Ontario Did

The AiGC says government data put about 70% of Alberta's iGaming activity with unregulated operators before launch, and its target is to move 75% of that into regulated sites within two years. Ontario lists 49 operators and 84 gaming websites as of 1 September, and an Ipsos study for iGaming Ontario found 91.1% of its online gamblers playing on regulated sites. Alberta already has more than half Ontario's site count, and BetMGM says its per-player metrics in Alberta are trending above its Ontario launch.

Alberta has closed its transition window with more than twice as many approved sites as it opened with and a clear official list of which are legal. Whether the operators that stayed outside take the deadline seriously will be settled by the AGLC's first enforcement decision.