How to get a gambling licence in Canada: fees and steps

Gambling in Canada is a matter of criminal law federally, but of licensing provincially. The federal Criminal Code prohibits gambling and then hands each province the exclusive power to conduct and manage it.

• The Criminal Code (ss. 201-207) makes keeping a common gaming house, bookmaking and running a lottery scheme criminal offences. Section 207(1)(a) carves out the key exception: it is lawful for the government of a province to conduct and manage a lottery scheme in that province in accordance with provincial law.
• Because the exception runs to the province, every legal online-gambling regime in Canada is a provincial conduct-and-manage regime. There is no federal gambling regulator and no national operator licence.
• The conduct-and-manage requirement is why Ontario and Alberta each interpose a state entity (iGaming Ontario, the Alberta iGaming Corporation) between the province and the private operator: the operator runs the site as the state entity’s commercial partner or agent, so the province is still said to conduct and manage the scheme.
• The federal government administers only the criminal framework, anti-money-laundering law (FINTRAC), and federal taxation (Canada Revenue Agency). It does not license operators.

Laws that apply

• Criminal Code (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46), ss. 201-207: gambling is prohibited except a lottery scheme conducted and managed by a province under s.207(1)(a)
• Bill C-218, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, which amended s.207 to permit single-event sport betting, in force 27 August 2021 (Order SI/2021-56)
• Ontario: Gaming Control Act, 1992 and O. Reg. under it; the AGCO Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming; the iGaming Ontario operating agreement
• Alberta: iGaming Alberta Act (SA 2025, c I-0.2), which created the Alberta iGaming Corporation with the AGLC as regulator
• Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), administered by FINTRAC
• Income Tax Act, as interpreted in CRA Income Tax Folio S3-F9-C1 (windfalls / gambling winnings)
• Kahnawake: Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming (enacted 8 July 1999, as amended) and the Regulations concerning Anti-Money Laundering, made by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission
• iGaming Ontario Act, 2024 (Ontario), which made iGO a standalone agency from 12 May 2025 rather than an AGCO subsidiary

The main change was federal: Bill C-218 legalised single-event sport betting in 2021, and Ontario then built the first open commercial online market.

Only two provinces let a private operator sell to the public. Both use the same two-body shape, and each has its own guide on this site: this section is the country-level comparison, not a substitute for either.

Alberta opened a competitive private online market on 13 July 2026 under the iGaming Alberta Act, deliberately modelled on Ontario’s two-body structure. Full route in the Alberta guide; the essentials and the differences are here.

• The iGaming Alberta Act (SA 2025, c. I-0.2) created the Alberta iGaming Corporation, which conducts and manages the market, while AGLC regulates and continues to run the government site, Play Alberta. It was proclaimed in three stages: ss. 1(a)–(g),(i) and 2–23 on 4 June 2025; most of s. 24 on 13 January 2026; and the paragraph requiring a registrant to also hold a contract with AiGC or AGLC on 18 June 2026.
• An operator first obtains registration from AGLC under Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act s. 49.2, then signs an operating agreement with AiGC. Since 18 June 2026 both are statutory requirements, not just commercial ones.
• Before either: AiGC requires a minimum of three years of operational history in a regulated North American jurisdiction, an active AGLC registration and a comprehensive financial audit. This is an eligibility requirement, and years spent serving Alberta from the grey market do not count: AGLC’s transition guidance makes continued unregulated activity a finding of unsuitability.
• The market went live on 13 July 2026 with 22 registered sites on AiGC’s own figure. AiGC’s public register listed 30 sites across 28 domains when captured on 10 September 2026, with one corporate group holding three of them. Trade-press registrant totals disagree with each other and with the register; use the AiGC directory.
• On the commercial split, get the two bases right. Operators retain 80% of net gaming revenue and AiGC collects the 20% residual. Separately, 3% of the whole regulated market’s GROSS gaming revenue is guaranteed: 2% to Indigenous Relations and First Nations, 1% to social responsibility. AiGC’s wording is that its share is collected “in addition to” the 3%; it does not publish an order of operations between the two, so do not model one, and do not add the percentages together.
• Fees, from AGLC’s own published schedule: a one-time operator application fee of CAD 50,000 plus an annual operator registration fee of CAD 150,000, both per site and both non-refundable. Suppliers pay CAD 15,000 (platform or critical gaming systems) or CAD 3,000 (e-wallet, oddsmaker, integrity monitor, testing facility) a year. SRIG 2.2.9 and 2.2.10 state the per-site rule in terms, so a sportsbook-plus-casino brand pair costs twice. Regulation s. 13.2 adds a CAD 10,000 initial deposit for background checks.
• Alberta sets no ownership percentage for disclosure. Regulation s. 1(e) defines financial interest to include any direct, indirect or contingent interest, expressly including having loaned or advanced money with or without security, so a lender is an associate. Ontario, by contrast, uses a clean 5% shareholder threshold.
• The route in is not a self-serve portal: applications go through the AGLC Due Diligence Unit and iGaming Compliance, and the commercial agreement is then negotiated with AiGC. AiGC tells applicants to expect three to four months.

Outside Ontario and Alberta, the province itself runs the only legal online site. A private operator there is a supplier to the monopoly, not a licensee serving players.

• British Columbia: the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) runs PlayNow, the sole legal online site. Note a 2026 change on the regulator side: BC brought its Gaming Control Act and Gaming Control Regulation into force on 13 April 2026 and replaced the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch with an Independent Gambling Control Office (IGCO), which now regulates BCLC. If you are pursuing the B2B supply route into BC, the IGCO is your counterparty. Quebec: Loto-Quebec runs Espacejeux. The Atlantic provinces use the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, and the Prairie provinces use the Western Canada Lottery Corporation (with provincial sites such as PlayNow in Manitoba and Saskatchewan).
• In these provinces the province conducts and manages directly, so there is no B2C licence for a private operator to obtain. A private firm participates by supplying the monopoly: platform technology, games, live-dealer studios, odds and data, payments or marketing services, under a commercial contract.
• Private online operators that take bets from residents of a monopoly province without being the provincial operator are treated as unregulated by that province, even if they hold a licence elsewhere (including a Kahnawake authorization).
• Some provinces have signalled interest in an Ontario-style opening, but as of the verification date only Ontario and Alberta run competitive private markets.

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission licenses interactive gaming from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake in Quebec. It is a real, long-running regime, but its authorizations do not resolve the provincial conduct-and-manage question.

• The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) enacted its Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming on 8 July 1999, one of the earliest online-gaming frameworks anywhere. Its site is gamingcommission.ca.
• Authorization types: the Interactive Gaming Licence (IGL) is held by the licensed hosting facility (Mohawk Internet Technologies has held the sole IGL since 1999); a Client Provider Authorization (CPA) is issued to each operator that hosts from that facility, with no cap on the number; and Key Person Permits cover controlling individuals. A CPA holder may offer casino, poker and sportsbook.
• Fees are set by the KGC regulations rather than published on the public site, whose materials refer only to paying "the appropriate application fee". Practitioner breakdowns put the roughly USD 40,000 entry cost for a Client Provider Authorisation at about USD 15,000 for due diligence plus USD 20,000 as the first annual fee plus USD 5,000 for the first Key Person Permit, so the USD 40,000 includes one key person rather than sitting on top of it, and additional key persons run about USD 5,000 each. Expect roughly USD 20,000 a year thereafter and about USD 5,000 per renewal. A 2025 change means the standard annual fee covers up to six licensed domains, with a reported USD 500 a year for each additional domain. Treat every one of these amounts as reported rather than tier-1 confirmed.
• AML and compliance duties sit in the KGC Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming and its Regulations concerning Anti-Money Laundering.

There is no gambling-specific operator tax in Ontario or Alberta. The levy is the iGO / AiGC revenue share, on top of ordinary corporate income tax. Player winnings are generally not taxed.

Federal AML law applies through FINTRAC, but who the reporting entity is in the provincial model has been debated. In practice iGaming Ontario has taken on the reporting role.

• Casinos are reporting entities under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), with FINTRAC duties: know-your-customer identity verification, record-keeping, and reporting of large cash, suspicious and terrorist-property transactions.
• There has been debate about whether the private online operators in Ontario’s conduct-and-manage model are themselves the reporting entities, or whether iGaming Ontario (the provincial conductor) is. iGaming Ontario has in practice acted as the reporting entity, filing to FINTRAC on behalf of the market; it reported submitting tens of thousands of reports since the market opened, and has been building its own reporting pipeline.
• Regardless of who files, operators must run full KYC (identity, sanctions and politically-exposed-person screening) at registration and monitor for suspicious activity as a condition of the Registrar’s Standards and the operating agreement.
• Alberta operators face equivalent AML expectations under federal law and the AGLC framework.

Ontario tightened advertising rules sharply in 2024, runs a maturing responsible-gambling regime, and drives unregulated operators to register. Alberta launched with a centralised self-exclusion system.

• Advertising: since 28 February 2024 the AGCO bans the use of athletes (active and retired) in igaming advertising and marketing, and restricts celebrities, role models, social-media influencers and cartoon figures who would likely appeal to minors. Responsible-gambling messaging using athletes remains permitted in limited forms.
• Responsible gambling: Ontario requires visible RG information, deposit and time limits and time-out breaks per the Registrar’s Standards, and it is no longer the per-operator model it was. The AGCO set Standard 2.14.1 by information bulletin on 2 April 2026, and the resulting Centralized Self-Exclusion Program went live on 14 May 2026 branded BetGuard, operated by iGaming Ontario at betguard.ca. One request excludes a player from every regulated igaming site in the province, for terms up to five years, with real-time checks at account creation, login and deposit, and it also blocks marketing. You must integrate with it. Note what it does not cover: OLG’s own My PlayBreak still applies only to OLG venues and OLG.ca. British Columbia runs GameSense through BCLC. Alberta launched with its own single centralised self-exclusion system covering all operators.
• Market size: Ontario is large and growing. iGaming Ontario reported that in fiscal 2024-2025 (the market’s third full year) 50 operators generated about CAD 82.7 billion in total wagers and about CAD 2.9 billion in gaming revenue from roughly 2.6 million active player accounts, up from about CAD 1.4 billion of revenue in the opening year. Those are the latest audited annual figures, and the FY2025-26 annual report was not yet published when this page was verified, but note they now understate the market: iGO monthly data put calendar 2025 nearer CAD 98 billion wagered and CAD 4 billion of revenue, and its own business plan forecasts about CAD 3.7 billion for FY2025-26.
• Enforcement: the open-market design is itself the enforcement lever. By offering a legal, competitive route, Ontario and Alberta pull operators out of the grey market; unregistered operators serving residents are treated as unregulated and face the province channelling players and payment and advertising pressure toward licensed sites.

Canada has no single route, so the first step is choosing a province. Ontario and Alberta each run their own registration and their own commercial agreement, and each has a full step-by-step guide of its own; the steps below decide which one you are reading next.

1. 01

   Decide which province you are selling into

   Planning

   This is the whole decision. A Canadian licence does not exist, so there is no application that covers the country. Ontario is the larger and older market, open since 4 April 2022, with roughly 49 operators live. Alberta opened on 13 July 2026 and had 30 registered sites by September 2026, and it will not look at you without three years of North American operating history. Everywhere else, B2C registration is not available at any price.

2. 02

   Ontario: register with the AGCO, then sign with iGaming Ontario

   The flagship market

   Two doors, both required before real-money play: regulatory registration with the AGCO against the Registrar’s Standards, and a commercial operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Budget CAD 100,000 per site per year to the AGCO plus the 20% revenue share iGO retains. The six steps, the gap analysis, the technical go-live gate and the Centralized Self-Exclusion Program integration are set out in the Ontario guide.

3. 03

   Alberta: register with the AGLC, then sign with the AiGC

   The second market

   The same conduct-and-manage shape, different numbers and a harder front door. CAD 50,000 on application and CAD 150,000 a year per site, RG Check accreditation, the Standards and Requirements for Internet Gaming to build against, and the three-year operating-history prerequisite before any of it. The ten steps are in the Alberta guide.

4. 04

   Any other province: supply, do not sell

   Monopoly provinces

   British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces run government monopolies, so the only commercial route is B2B supply to the provincial corporation: games, platform, payments or data. The three territories have no online product at all, government or private. Nothing here needs a B2C application, because none exists to make.

5. 05

   Kahnawake: a hosting authorisation, not market access

   Read the limits

   The Kahnawake Gaming Commission issues interactive-gaming authorisations from Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke inside Quebec. It is not a foreign licence and it is not a route into Ontario or Alberta, both of which require their own registration and both of which bar registered operators from associating with the unregulated market.

Tier-ordered: official government first, then practitioner, then trade media. Every primary figure was read from the in-force text on 11 Sep 2026.