When policymakers and investors look for a working model of regulated online casino gambling in North America, they increasingly look to Ontario. Online casino gambling is currently legal and operational in just seven US states, making Ontario’s open, competitive framework, launched in April 2022, one of the few functioning blueprints on the continent. Three years in, the province has produced numbers that have surprised even its own projections, and the rest of North America is paying close attention.
The model was deliberately built around competition rather than monopoly, and for anyone tracking where regulated iGaming is heading, Gambling.com, home of the Ontario online casinos guide, the results represent one of the most compelling market-growth case studies of the past decade. It is not just the scale of what has been built. It is the speed.
From grey market to CA$3.2 billion in three years
Before the regulated market launched, it was estimated that around 70% of online gambling in the province was taking place on unregulated, offshore platforms, generating no tax revenue, offering no consumer protections, and operating entirely outside provincial oversight. Ontario licensed multiple private operators under a framework overseen by iGaming Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, creating a structure that combines regulatory rigour with genuine commercial competition.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the province generated CA$3.2 billion in gross gaming revenue – a 32% increase on the previous year and more than double the CA$1.4 billion recorded in its opening year. Total wagers across the market reached CA$82.7 billion, handled by 50 licensed operators running 84 gaming websites.
Those are not niche numbers. Ontario is now one of the largest regulated online gambling markets in the world, and the only fully open iGaming market in Canada.
The channelisation story matters most
Revenue figures get attention, but the more instructive metric for anyone evaluating the Ontario model as a template is channelisation – the share of gamblers using regulated rather than unregulated platforms.
Before the regulated market launched, roughly 70% of online gambling activity in Ontario was occurring on unregulated sites. By the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, an IPSOS study commissioned by iGaming Ontario found that 83.7% of Ontario players reported using regulated platforms. That is a structural shift in consumer behaviour, achieved in three years, with no coercive enforcement. The licensed market simply offered a better product.
For regulators elsewhere in North America watching this unfold, the implication is significant. A well-designed open market does not just generate tax revenue. It displaces the grey market by competing on quality.
What the US debate is missing
Ontario’s trajectory does not resolve the familiar objections slowing iGaming expansion south of the border – brick-and-mortar operators lobbying against cannibalisation of physical revenues, unions concerned about job losses, legislators uncertain about the political optics. But it does provide a concrete counter-argument to the most common one: that regulated online gambling primarily hurts existing land-based operators.
The Ontario framework coexists with a mature land-based casino sector, and the regulated online market has grown without the widespread physical casino closures that opponents predicted. According to Deloitte’s economic contribution report commissioned by iGaming Ontario, the market contributed $2.7 billion to Ontario’s GDP in its second year alone – up from $1.58 billion in year one, while sustaining nearly 15,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Those figures arrived well ahead of the ten-year projections made at launch.
The investment angle
For investors tracking the iGaming sector, Ontario’s regulated market is increasingly the benchmark. The province has demonstrated that a competitive licensing model, as opposed to a monopoly or a heavily restricted duopoly, produces faster revenue growth, higher channelisation, and stronger player engagement metrics.
Casino products, including slots, live dealer tables, and peer-to-peer bingo, accounted for 75% of total gaming revenue in Ontario’s third year, with 2.6 million active player accounts placing wagers across the market. The operator count has grown from 12 at launch to 50, with more reportedly in the pipeline.
The structure that produced open licensing, mandatory responsible gambling tools, and transparent monthly reporting is the one that other North American jurisdictions are studying. Whether in the context of potential iGaming legislation in US states, or the question of whether other Canadian provinces follow Ontario’s lead, the same framework keeps coming up as the reference point.
Ontario did not set out to be a model. It set out to solve a grey-market problem. Three years of data suggest it has done both.
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