Canada’s online gambling market reaches CAD 13.15 billion in 2025, but self-exclusion still stops at provincial borders

Canada has become the world’s third-largest iGaming market, but the protection stack still looks provincial, not national. That matters for high-risk operators and PSPs because fragmented regulation tends to push volume offshore while leaving licensed brands to compete with one hand tied behind their back.

1. According to a new report from CasinoCanada.com, Canada generated an estimated CAD 13.15 billion in online gambling revenue during 2025, placing it third worldwide. The same report says the market is expanding quickly, but the country still has no nationwide self-exclusion register and no unified licensing framework.
2. The study draws on data from iGaming Ontario, provincial regulators, the Blask 2025 iGaming Landscape Report, and peer-reviewed public health research. Its core point is structural: Canada’s constitution leaves gambling regulation to the provinces, so the country runs through ten separate regulatory systems with no single player-protection mechanism covering all of them.
3. That fragmentation appears to be feeding offshore leakage. The report estimates offshore market leakage outside Ontario at 49% in British Columbia, 93% in Saskatchewan, and 88% in both Alberta and Manitoba. It also says offshore gambling platforms grew 40% year-over-year in 2025, versus 23% growth for licensed operators.
4. On the responsible gambling side, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in January 2026 found that gambling-related contacts to ConnexOntario’s support helpline rose by an estimated 198% after Ontario launched its regulated market in 2022. Most of that increase was concentrated among boys and men aged 15 to 44.
5. Ontario is still the outlier in a positive sense: the province posted a 91.1% channelization rate, and its BetGuard self-exclusion program drew more than 500 registrations in its first two weeks. Even so, CasinoCanada says the system only applies in Ontario and does not extend across Canada’s estimated 1.235 million active player accounts.

For operators and PSPs, the practical takeaway is straightforward: Canada is big, but it is not one market when it comes to compliance, exclusion tooling, or supervisory coverage. Eugene Ravdin, Head of PR at CasinoCanada, put it bluntly: “Record wagering volumes and a nearly 200% increase in helpline contacts are happening simultaneously, showing that market growth and player protection are not the same thing.”