PointsBet Ontario will go offline for 48 hours under AGCO settlement over Jontay Porter wagers

PointsBet Canada has agreed to take its Ontario online gambling platform offline for 48 hours in a settlement with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). The deal closes a dispute over wagers tied to Jontay Porter and replaces the five-day suspension the regulator proposed in February.

1. The suspension dates have not been set. Under the settlement, PointsBet’s Ontario platform will be offline for 48 hours, rather than the five-day iGaming registration suspension AGCO proposed in February 2026.
2. The settlement also adds an independent audit. The financial and operational review must be carried out by an independent auditor approved by AGCO, and the regulator must approve the audit methodology as well.
3. PointsBet will have to fix any issues the review uncovers, and an independent review will verify that the corrective measures were actually implemented. In other words, this is not just a box-ticking exercise; the operator has to show the remediation happened.
4. The underlying issue was the handling of wagers linked to Jontay Porter. AGCO’s investigation looked at whether Ontario sportsbooks had flagged and reported unusual betting patterns involving Porter, after the former Toronto Raptors player was banned for life by the NBA in 2024 and charged with a federal felony.
5. PointsBet first told AGCO it had not accepted bets on Porter, then later acknowledged that it had taken wagers involving the player after a US Department of Justice indictment was published. AGCO said those wagers should have been detected and reported at the time, while PointsBet argued it had supplied accurate information promptly once it found the relevant data and cooperated with the investigation.

For high-risk operators, the detail that matters is the shape of the remedy: a short platform outage, an independent audit, and mandatory remediation, instead of a five-day suspension. That is the sort of outcome compliance teams in Ontario will look at closely, because it shows how AGCO is willing to escalate, but also how settlements can land once an operator contests the proposed order and goes to the Licence Appeal Tribunal process.