Last Updated on August 7, 2026 by Maurya
Canada’s online poker market is entering one of its most important periods in years. In 2026, the conversation is no longer simply about whether Canadians want to play poker online. The bigger questions are how provincial regulation will evolve, whether poker rooms will gain access to larger shared player pools, how Alberta’s new competitive iGaming framework will affect the national landscape, and what the Supreme Court of Canada could mean for international poker liquidity.
Ontario remains the centre of regulated private-sector iGaming in Canada. The province’s regulated market launched in April 2022 and has since developed into one of North America’s largest online gaming jurisdictions. At the end of the 2024–25 fiscal year, Ontario reported more than C$82.7 billion in wagers, approximately C$2.9 billion in gaming revenue, and more than 2.6 million active player accounts across the regulated iGaming market. Peer-to-peer poker accounted for about C$1.66 billion in wagers and C$58.6 million in gaming revenue during that fiscal year.
Poker remains much smaller than online casino gaming in revenue terms, but that does not make it insignificant. Poker is uniquely dependent on the size and quality of its player pool. More liquidity can mean fuller cash-game tables, larger tournament fields, more buy-in levels and greater availability outside peak playing hours.
That makes regulatory developments surrounding shared liquidity potentially more important to poker than almost any conventional growth statistic.
Canada Online Poker Market
| Market factor | 2026 outlook |
| Ontario regulated iGaming market | Mature and still expanding |
| Ontario P2P poker | Established but liquidity-sensitive |
| International poker liquidity | Major legal question before Supreme Court |
| Alberta | Preparing competitive regulated iGaming launch |
| Player protection | Becoming more centralized and data-driven |
| Mobile poker | Remains central to player acquisition and retention |
| AI and poker technology | Increasing integrity and compliance challenge |
| Long-term outlook | Positive, but highly dependent on regulation and liquidity |
One particularly important point is that Canada is not a single unified online poker jurisdiction. Gambling is largely organized at the provincial level. Section 207(1)(a) of Canada’s Criminal Code permits a provincial government, either by itself or together with another province, to conduct and manage a lottery scheme in accordance with provincial law.
As a result, players should distinguish between the Canadian market as a whole and locally regulated options available in their province.
Ontario Remains the Benchmark for Online Poker in Canada
Ontario provides the clearest picture of what a competitive regulated Canadian online gambling market can look like.
When Ontario completed its third full fiscal year of regulated iGaming in March 2025, there were 50 active operators. The province reported C$2.19 billion in online casino gaming revenue, C$653.8 million from betting and C$58.6 million from peer-to-peer poker. Poker revenue was slightly lower than the previous fiscal year’s roughly C$60.2 million despite poker wagers rising from approximately C$1.62 billion to C$1.66 billion.
Those numbers illustrate something important about the online poker outlook in Canada: poker will probably never grow at the same rate as slots or conventional casino games simply because the economics are different.
In poker, the operator generally earns revenue through rake and tournament fees rather than competing directly against the customer as the house. What matters enormously is having enough active players at similar stakes, formats and times of day.
Ontario’s 2025–2028 business plan described the jurisdiction as the largest per-capita peer-to-peer poker market in North America. More recently, iGaming Ontario’s 2026–2029 plan said P2P poker performed more strongly than originally anticipated during the 2025–26 fiscal year.
That suggests poker has considerable staying power even while casino games dominate overall iGaming revenue.
Shared Liquidity Could Transform Canadian Online Poker
The biggest development affecting the future of online poker in Canada is undoubtedly shared liquidity.
Ontario currently operates its regulated poker ecosystem with geographic restrictions. For poker players, separating Ontario from larger international networks can limit tournament fields, cash-game availability and the range of stakes available at less popular times.
The legal landscape changed significantly on November 12, 2025. In Reference re iGaming Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled 4–1 that Ontario’s proposed model involving players outside Canada could remain lawful under section 207(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, provided Ontario continued to conduct and manage the Ontario component of the gaming scheme.
However, the issue is not finally settled as of August 2026.
Atlantic Lottery Corporation, British Columbia Lottery Corporation and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court’s official docket lists the case as Atlantic Lottery Corporation, et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario, file 42141, and has scheduled the appeal hearing for October 7, 2026.
That October hearing may prove to be the single most consequential Canadian online poker event of 2026.
If Ontario ultimately receives a clear legal path toward international pooled liquidity and chooses to implement it, regulated poker rooms could potentially connect Ontario customers with substantially larger pools of eligible international players.
The likely effects would include larger tournament fields and guarantees, stronger off-peak cash-game traffic, greater availability of niche formats and stakes, and potentially stronger incentives for players currently outside the provincial regulated ecosystem to migrate toward regulated platforms.
There would be trade-offs. Bigger international pools could also produce tougher competition. A small regional ecosystem often contains a different recreational-to-professional player mix than a global network. Liquidity therefore improves game availability without automatically making poker easier or more profitable for individual players.
Alberta Could Become Canada’s Next Major iGaming Market
Ontario may soon have company.
Alberta is developing a competitive regulated iGaming framework under which private operators can participate alongside the province’s existing gambling ecosystem. Alberta says legislation and regulations are now in place, the Alberta iGaming Corporation is being established to oversee the market, and the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis agency will act as regulator. Operator and supplier registration is already underway ahead of the new market’s launch.
The Alberta government estimates that unregulated operators currently account for approximately 70% of the province’s iGaming market, highlighting the potential opportunity to move existing activity into a provincially regulated environment. Alberta’s proposed commercial structure allocates 80% of net iGaming revenue to operators and 20% to government after specified First Nations and social-responsibility allocations.
For online poker, the key question will again be liquidity.
Launching another isolated poker market would create many of the same challenges Ontario has faced. Connecting Alberta and Ontario through an approved interprovincial structure could be considerably more interesting.
Ontario itself has confirmed that it continues to work with provincial partners on the development of interprovincial liquidity.
If additional provinces eventually adopt compatible frameworks, Canada could move toward something resembling a multi-jurisdiction poker network rather than a collection of isolated provincial rooms.
That remains a longer-term possibility rather than a guaranteed outcome, but it could materially change the economics of regulated Canadian poker.
Growth Will Be Measured by Engagement, Not Just Revenue
Readers researching the Canadian poker industry should be careful not to compare poker directly with online casinos.
Ontario’s casino category generated roughly C$2.19 billion in revenue during fiscal 2024–25 compared with C$58.6 million from P2P poker. The difference is enormous, yet revenue alone does not capture poker’s value to an iGaming ecosystem.
Poker can attract customers with very different behaviour from slot or sportsbook users. Successful poker ecosystems depend heavily on community, tournament schedules, competitive structures and repeated participation.
Useful indicators for the Canadian market between 2026 and 2030 will therefore include tournament participation, concurrent player liquidity, active tables across multiple stakes, operator competition, player retention and the percentage of play being channelled toward regulated platforms.
Ontario provides an encouraging sign on that last metric. A 2026 Ipsos study commissioned by iGaming Ontario and the AGCO found that 91.1% of surveyed Ontario online gamblers reported using regulated sites, compared with 83.7% the previous year. The share reporting that they played exclusively on unregulated sites fell to 8.9%.
For regulators, high channelization is crucial. Regulation has limited value when customers continue playing primarily outside the regulated market.
Mobile Poker Will Continue to Shape Product Development
Canadian poker is increasingly a mobile-first product.
Modern players expect to register, verify an account, deposit, enter tournaments and play directly from a smartphone or tablet. The old model of online poker as primarily a desktop activity continues to fade.
Mobile design also changes the types of poker products likely to attract casual players. Faster tournaments, short-handed formats, simplified interfaces and games designed around shorter sessions fit naturally into mobile behaviour.
However, poker presents more interface challenges than slots or sports betting. Players need to see stack sizes, betting action, cards, tournament information and table controls simultaneously. Multi-tabling on a small screen creates additional complexity.
In the next stage of Canadian poker development, successful platforms will therefore compete not only through tournament guarantees or promotions but through software quality, stability, navigation, payment speed and mobile usability.
AI Will Be Both an Innovation Opportunity and an Integrity Challenge
Artificial intelligence has already demonstrated extraordinary strength in poker. Academic research has shown that sophisticated AI systems can achieve expert-level performance in complex poker environments.
That creates a difficult issue for real-money online poker.
AI can improve fraud detection, identify unusual betting patterns, personalize responsible-gambling interventions and help poker operators detect possible collusion. At the same time, unauthorized real-time assistance, bots and automated decision-making tools can threaten confidence in player-versus-player games.
Expect game integrity to become an increasingly visible competitive factor.
Serious regulated operators will need sophisticated systems for identifying suspicious accounts, detecting coordinated play, analysing unusual statistical patterns and differentiating legitimate study tools from prohibited real-time assistance.
Ontario already requires critical gaming technologies—including poker and other card-game systems—to be certified against applicable regulatory standards before deployment.
Over the next several years, technical integrity standards are likely to become more demanding rather than less.
- Responsible Gambling Is Becoming More Centralized
The Canadian online poker market cannot be evaluated purely in terms of revenue and player growth.
Regulators increasingly expect operators to identify potentially harmful patterns of gambling and intervene appropriately. Ontario’s AGCO guidance requires operators to have mechanisms for monitoring behaviour and proactively identifying customers who may be at risk. Its guidance specifically contemplates automated and manual monitoring, behavioural indicators and continuing evaluation of whether intervention systems work effectively.
Ontario took another significant step in May 2026 with the launch of BetGuard, a centralized self-exclusion system.
Instead of opting out separately from individual regulated operators, eligible Ontario users can use the system to exclude themselves across all provincially regulated online gaming platforms. A person enrolled in BetGuard is prevented from accessing existing accounts, creating new ones and receiving marketing communications from regulated operators during the exclusion period.
This type of centralized system could influence other Canadian provinces as they design future iGaming frameworks.
For sustainable poker growth, player protection is not an obstacle to market development. It is part of the infrastructure required for a durable regulated industry.
Competition Will Shift From Market Entry to Product Quality
Ontario’s explosive early growth involved a rapid increase in operators.
The regulated market began in 2022 with 12 operators and had grown to around 50 by the end of fiscal 2024–25. As of July 22, 2026, iGaming Ontario listed 48 operators and 82 regulated gaming websites across its market.
The next phase looks different.
iGaming Ontario expects fewer new operators to enter as the market matures. Its 2026–2029 plan forecasts continued overall market growth but at a slower rate, projecting approximately C$4.3 billion in adjusted gross gaming revenue for fiscal 2026–27 and just over C$5 billion in revenue by 2028–29 across the broader Ontario iGaming market.
For poker, consolidation may actually make strategic sense. Player-versus-player games benefit from concentrated liquidity. Too many independent networks can divide the available customer base into small pools.
The strongest poker businesses may therefore be those that combine large networks with reliable software, attractive tournament ecosystems and strong integrity controls rather than simply adding another standalone poker room.
What Could Hold Back Online Poker Growth in Canada?
Despite the positive outlook, several obstacles remain.
The first is fragmented regulation. Canadian gambling rules are provincial, which makes a seamless nationwide commercial poker ecosystem difficult to build.
The second is liquidity. Without larger permitted pools, niche poker variants and high-stakes games can struggle to operate consistently.
The third is regulatory uncertainty. The Supreme Court’s October 2026 hearing means the international-liquidity question remains unresolved at the national level at the time of writing.
The fourth is competition from other forms of digital entertainment. Online poker must compete for attention not only with casino games and sports betting but also with video games, streaming, social media and countless mobile entertainment products.
Finally, operators must protect game integrity. Poker relies on customers believing that they are competing in a fair environment against legitimate opponents. Bots, collusion and prohibited assistance tools can damage that trust quickly.
Online Poker Canada Forecast: 2026 to 2030
The most realistic outlook is measured growth rather than an overnight poker boom.
Ontario’s current poker market has demonstrated that regulated P2P poker can produce substantial wagering volume, but the existing provincial structure places natural limits on liquidity. At the same time, Ontario’s broader iGaming sector continues to grow, channelization has improved markedly and policymakers are actively examining both international and interprovincial liquidity.
Alberta represents another major variable. A successful competitive launch could establish a second important private-operator iGaming jurisdiction and potentially encourage further debate elsewhere in Canada.
The biggest upside scenario would involve a combination of additional regulated provinces, agreements permitting broader domestic liquidity and eventual international pooling under a legally sustainable framework.
Under that model, Canada could support substantially larger regulated tournament ecosystems and more consistent cash-game traffic.
A more conservative scenario would see provinces continue operating largely separate ecosystems. Poker would remain viable but comparatively niche, with casino gaming and sports betting continuing to generate the overwhelming majority of commercial iGaming revenue.
Either way, poker is unlikely to disappear. Its combination of skill, competition and community gives it qualities that conventional casino games do not replicate.
Is Online Poker Growing in Canada in 2026?
The answer requires some nuance.
The broader regulated iGaming market is clearly growing, particularly in Ontario. Ontario’s wagers and gaming revenue increased by more than 30% year over year in fiscal 2024–25, while iGaming Ontario subsequently reported continued strong market momentum.
Poker itself has experienced a flatter trajectory. Ontario’s fiscal 2024–25 P2P poker revenue was slightly below the prior year’s figure even though wagering increased modestly. More recently, however, iGaming Ontario has described poker performance in fiscal 2025–26 as stronger than anticipated.
So the best description of Canadian online poker in 2026 is stable with significant structural upside.
The market’s biggest potential growth engine is not simply attracting more customers. It is giving those customers access to deeper regulated liquidity.
FAQs
What is the biggest online poker trend in Canada for 2026?
Shared liquidity is the dominant issue. Ontario won a significant Court of Appeal decision concerning international pooled gaming in November 2025, but the case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada, with a hearing scheduled for October 7, 2026.
How large is Ontario’s regulated poker market?
For fiscal 2024–25, regulated peer-to-peer poker generated approximately C$1.66 billion in wagers and C$58.6 million in gaming revenue.
Will Alberta regulate private online poker?
Alberta is preparing a competitive regulated iGaming framework allowing private operators to enter the market subject to provincial requirements. The eventual poker offering and liquidity arrangements will depend on operators, regulators and applicable Canadian law.
Could Ontario poker players join international player pools?
Potentially, but not yet as a consequence of the Court of Appeal ruling alone. Ontario’s proposed international-liquidity model won before the Ontario Court of Appeal, and that ruling has been appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court hearing is scheduled for October 2026.
What will drive the future of online poker in Canada?
Liquidity is likely to be the most important factor, followed by provincial regulation, mobile technology, game-integrity controls, responsible-gambling systems and the ability of regulated operators to offer competitive poker products.
Final Thoughts
The Online Poker Outlook Canada 2026 is more interesting than raw revenue figures suggest.
Ontario has already proved that a provincially regulated competitive iGaming market can reach substantial scale. It has also demonstrated poker’s central weakness under a geographically restricted system: even a relatively large Canadian province cannot reproduce the liquidity of major international poker networks on its own.
That could eventually change.
Ontario’s attempt to establish international pooled liquidity, the Supreme Court of Canada’s forthcoming decision, Alberta’s developing competitive iGaming market and discussions around interprovincial cooperation together create the possibility of a much more connected Canadian poker ecosystem.
If those regulatory pieces fall into place, Canadian players could eventually gain access to deeper cash-game traffic, larger tournament fields and a wider range of poker formats while remaining inside regulated environments with formal consumer protections.
If liquidity remains fragmented, poker will probably continue as a smaller but durable segment of the Canadian iGaming industry.
Either way, 2026 is likely to be remembered as an important transition year. The Canadian poker market has largely moved beyond the question of whether regulated online poker can exist. The question now is how large, connected and competitive the regulated ecosystem is allowed to become.
