Ontario online gambling keeps smashing betting records
Ontario’s online casino and sports-betting scene is still relatively young, but the province already plays like a seasoned high-roller. In September 2025, regulated sites handled a record CA$8.55 billion in wagers, the biggest monthly total since the market opened in April 2022.
If you care about gambling, the provincial coffers, or just how much money folks will risk from the couch, those numbers matter. They shape how much tax flows to Queen’s Park, how tough the rules become, and whether legal apps can out-compete the offshore sites still chasing Ontarians.
Record wagers for online gambling
New monthly data in Ontario’s official market report show that by September 2025, online casino, sports betting and peer-to-peer poker combined for CA$8.55 billion in handle, up about 5 % from August’s CA$8.14 billion and roughly 31 % higher than September 2024.
Casino-style games do almost all the heavy lifting. Roughly CA$7.34 billion of September’s wagers came from online slots and tables, while sports betting contributed just over CA$1.06 billion and peer-to-peer poker barely moved the needle. Across the 2024–25 fiscal year, total online wagers hit CA$82.7 billion and gaming revenue about CA$3.2 billion, with casino products dwarfing everything else.
Risks, rules and next moves
With that much money moving at thumb-tap speed, Ontario’s regulators have little patience for sloppy marketing. Since regulated iGaming launched in April 2022, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has fined operators such as BetMGM Canada and PointsBet Canada for breaking rules on advertising and responsible-gambling safeguards.
In November 2025, the Ontario Court of Appeal added a twist by ruling that the province can let locally licensed platforms run peer-to-peer games like online poker and daily fantasy sports against international player pools, provided Ontario keeps control of the operation. That opens the door to bigger tournaments and richer prize pools for a poker segment that currently trails far behind casino revenue.
For everyday players, that mix of record wagers and global tables is both thrilling and a bit unnerving. Regulators publish safer-gambling guidance and are building broader self-exclusion tools, but the smartest play is still to treat the apps as entertainment, not income, because in Ontario’s booming iGaming market the games evolve quickly and the house always has the long-term edge.
