Ontario’s regulated online entertainment market has closed out a landmark year and carried that momentum into 2026, posting record wager volumes alongside a structural push to make consumer protections more meaningful and consistent across the province’s growing roster of licensed operators. The numbers are striking on their own, but the more significant story is what the province is doing with the credibility those numbers have created.
A Record January Opens a Record Year
According to figures published by iGaming Ontario, licensed operators in the province handled over CA$9.52 billion in total wagers in January alone, a notable increase from the CA$7.85 billion recorded in January 2025.
The milestone came directly off the back of a record-setting December 2025, when the province posted a then-all-time high of CA$9.501 billion in monthly player spending and CA$425.4 million in non-adjusted gross gaming revenue. January’s handle edged past that December figure, making it the highest monthly wagering total the province had recorded since the market launched in April 2022.
Ontario’s iGaming handle has now exceeded CA$9 billion in four consecutive months, and the market had broken the CA$400 million monthly revenue barrier for the first time ever in November 2025 before bettering it in December.
The Full 2025 Picture
The scale of the January result reflects a year of sustained growth throughout 2025. Total cash wagers across the full calendar year reached approximately CA$98.3 billion, a 26% increase year over year, while combined operator revenue climbed 34% to just over CA$4 billion.
Because iGaming Ontario reports figures before the province’s 20% tax rate is applied, those results suggest the province collected roughly CA$807 million in iGaming tax revenue during the year, with operators retaining approximately CA$3.2 billion after tax.
Since Ontario opened its regulated iGaming market in April 2022, total operator revenue has now surpassed CA$10 billion, reaching approximately CA$10.2 billion, generating an estimated CA$2 billion in cumulative provincial tax income over that period.
Ontario ended 2025 with 1.267 million active player accounts, up 24.5% year over year, and average revenue per active account reached a record CA$334, a 27% increase from 2024.
Ontario’s Standing in North America
For consumers interested in understanding how Ontario’s regulated environment works in practice, including which platforms are currently licensed and what player protections are in place, online gambling in Ontario provides a current overview of the market as it enters this new phase of oversight and expansion.
The province consistently operated at a scale unmatched by any U.S. jurisdiction throughout 2025, and January 2026’s CA$9.52 billion in monthly handle placed Ontario ahead of markets like Illinois and Indiana in total cash wagers.
The province’s 48 licensed and active commercial operators collectively ran more than 80 approved real-money platforms at the start of 2026, representing the most competitive licensed operator environment in North America by number of participants. That total excludes the government-run Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which falls outside iGaming Ontario’s reporting framework and had yet to release its full 2024-25 annual results as of late February 2026.
Online Casino Remains the Dominant Engine
Within January’s CA$9.52 billion total, online casino games accounted for CA$8.18 billion in wagers, or 86% of all player spending. Casino revenue for the month reached CA$308.9 million, representing 77% of total market revenue and a 33.7% year-over-year increase from January 2025, a growth rate that outpaced the 25.6% rise in casino wagering volume over the same period.
Throughout 2025, iCasino’s share of total wagers never fell below 83% and peaked at 89% during the summer months, with the vertical generating more than CA$3.1 billion in casino-specific revenue across the full year. Sports betting accounted for CA$1.18 billion in January wagers, or 12% of overall iGaming player spending, an 8% increase from December 2025.
Ontarians wagered more than CA$12 billion on sports in aggregate across 2025, and sports betting revenue reached CA$102 million in November and CA$99.1 million in December, the two highest monthly sportsbook revenue totals of the year. Peer-to-peer poker contributed CA$156 million in January wagers, roughly 2% of market share.
New Entrants Continue to Arrive
The market’s strong trajectory continues to attract new operators. Sports streaming giant DAZN received a license on January 16, 2026, from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to launch DAZN Bet in the province, a platform that already operates in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.
DAZN’s entry leverages the company’s existing sports streaming rights in Canada, including the NFL, and the launch is being undertaken in partnership with Pragmatic Group to integrate sports betting directly into DAZN Group’s live sports streaming platform. A DAZN spokesperson indicated the company hoped to clear all regulatory and operating obligations as early as the first quarter of 2026.
When DAZN Bet goes live under its own operating agreement with iGaming Ontario, it is expected to bring the total number of licensed commercial operators in the province to 49, with absolutebet having also secured a license but not yet launched, and High Roller Technologies holding a pending application with the AGCO.
Shifting Focus: Advertising Oversight and the Canadian Code
The bigger story heading into 2026 is not growth alone. Ontario’s regulated market has moved beyond its launch phase, and the regulatory focus has shifted toward advertising oversight, player protection, and long-term credibility.
A concrete step in the advertising space came into effect on January 1 when Ad Standards began accepting complaints under the Canadian Code for Advertising of Gambling, developed by the Canadian Gaming Association with industry stakeholders throughout 2025.
The code, which applies to all forms of gambling, gaming, or betting advertising communicated to Canadians in any medium by CGA members and other signatories, supplements rather than replaces the AGCO’s existing Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming.
Ad Standards published a three-year review of gambling advertising complaints spanning April 2022 to April 2025, which noted a shift in public concern: early complaints challenged the overall presence of gambling advertising, while later complaints focused on the content of specific ads, reflecting a more mature public conversation about how the market presents itself.
The Centralized Self-Exclusion System
Alongside the advertising code, iGaming Ontario is preparing to launch a long-awaited centralized self-exclusion system in 2026, which will allow players to cut off access to all licensed operators simultaneously through a single registration process, without needing to do so manually on each individual platform.
iGaming Ontario President and CEO Joseph Hillier, who took up the role in August 2025, has described the system as overdue and confirmed the program is expected to go live in the first half of 2026.
In December 2025, the AGCO published new guidance adjusting the Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming to prepare for the launch, clarifying that term options will include six-month, one-year, and five-year durations, that operators must prevent self-excluded players from creating new accounts to bypass the program, and that self-excluding players must not receive marketing material or promotional incentives.
The technology underpinning the system was built through a joint bid by Integrity Compliance 360 and IXUP, drawing on IC360’s ProhiBet platform and IXUP’s experience developing BetStop in Australia. iGO also intends to include the government-run Ontario Lottery and Gaming platform in the program, which Hillier noted is critical to the system’s effectiveness.
What 2026 Signals for Canadian iGaming Broadly
Ontario’s trajectory is now being studied closely beyond its borders. Several of the province’s 48 licensed commercial operators have begun applying to enter Alberta, which is targeting a mid-2026 launch for its own competitive iGaming framework modeled on Ontario’s structure. Hillier has noted that iGaming Ontario has made itself available to share lessons learned with Alberta regulators, citing centralized self-exclusion as one area where interprovincial collaboration makes practical sense.
The credibility Ontario has built over nearly four years, underpinned by CA$10.2 billion in total regulated revenue since April 2022, a channelization rate of 83.7% toward licensed platforms, and a maturing set of consumer safeguards, has positioned the province as a working template for what a regulated competitive iGaming market can look like at scale.
