Alberta’s Bill 48 Takes Steps To Open Up iGaming

On Wednesday, Alberta Minister of Service Dale Nally introduced Bill 48 into the legislature. Nally's bill would create the Alberta iGaming Corporation, which would oversee the opening of online gambling in the province.

While online gambling is currently legal in Alberta, PlayAlberta, owned and operated by Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis, is the only regulated iGaming platform in Canada's Oil Country. Bill 48 would open up Canada's fourth-largest province to other operators.

Alberta iGaming Bill Short on Details

Nally's bill addresses how this new crown corporation will be set up, the powers of board members, where revenues will go once they arrive, and the creation of a self-exclusion list.

But it lacks details on other topics such as tax rates, how many operators can enter the province, or if there will be direct funding for problem gambling and addiction services. This is all by design, per Nally.

“We want Albertans who choose to gamble online to have the same kind of protections they have when they go to casinos,” said Nally, whose aim for this bill is to reduce the number of Albertans betting in illegal markets.

With PlayAlberta serving 313,000 Albertans, estimates say the provincial app sees only 45% of all igaming traffic in the province, leaving many Albertans exposed to predatory practices. It also leaves a lot of money out of the province's coffers.

Following the Ontario Model

Of the $2.3 billion contributed to Alberta's General Fund from gaming, liquor, and cannabis, $1.51 billion (66%) came from gaming operations. With an open industry where other operators like BetMGM, Caesars, theScoreBet, and FanDuel (to name a few), the province could see that $1.5 billion doubled.

Ontario currently has 49 registered igaming operators in the province, which has reduced the number of players still on unregulated sites to 13.6%. A reduction of that level would be a massive success in Alberta, where more than half of the players are still using offshore books.

Bill 48 still needs a lot of work and was only just introduced into the legislature this week with its first reading. The support for this bill will be tested, but with PlayAlberta up and running since mid-2020, and with so much already being funneled into Alberta's General Fund, it's not "if" this bill will pass but "when".