The Québec Online Gaming Coalition (QOGC) has once again urged the province’s government to embrace a competitive, regulated online gambling market.
At a panel discussion during the 2025 Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto, iGaming advocates urged the francophone province to heed lessons from across the border and stop missing out on huge revenues.
Crown corporation Loto-Québec maintains a monopoly in the province’s online gambling market through its platform, Espacejeux. While this setup maintains exclusive control, reports show that the government-run platform’s market share is about 44% — a situation the coalition calls inefficient compared to the Ontario online casino market and the soon-to-be launched Alberta iGaming market.
Québec Losing $2 Billion a Year to Unregulated Online Gambling
According to Loto-Québec’s 2024-25 fiscal year results, the crown corporation only generated roughly $3 billion in total revenue and a consolidated net income of a little more than $1.5 billion, both small increases from the previous year.
From the QOGC’S perspective, these results “show no progress from the previous year” as net income remains stagnant. New information from the panel also revealed Québec is losing almost $2 billion a year to unregulated online operators.
On the panel were Ariane Gauthier, spokesperson for the Québec Online Gaming Coalition (QOGC), Troy Ross of TRM Public Affairs and Patrick Harris of Rubicon Strategy. They said the numbers make a compelling case for modernizing Québec’s approach to online gaming.
Further advancing their case, the panel showed the regulated operator, Loto-Québec, only captures about 23%, leaving about three-quarters of online play revenue to offshore or unregulated sites. This number contrasts data from the crown corporation and its president Jean-François Bergeron, who suggested it captured a little less than 50% of the province’s market channelization.
Commenting on the crown corporation’s market channelization, Gauthier said:
“Even if we take Loto-Québec’s claim to capture 60 or 50% of the market, it still leaves half of the players in an unregulated market. That’s not acceptable. That’s not enough. Even in the best-case scenario, it’s not enough.”
Gauthier said Québec’s attachment to Crown corporations — institutions many residents see as protectors of culture and local economic levers — helps explain public and political resistance to opening the market. She and other coalition members say a competitive, licensed framework could channel more play into the regulated market and recover revenue now going offshore, which would otherwise boost local services.
QOGC Calls for a Closer Look at Ontario Model
The Québec Online Gaming Coalition was formed in 2023 when DraftKings, Flutter (owner of FanDuel), Entain (co-owner of BetMGM), Rush Street Interactive (BetRivers), Super Group’s Betway, and Canadian brand Bet99 joined forces to help Québec’s provincial government and local stakeholders come up with a legal framework that competes with Loto-Québec.
At the 2025 Canadian Gaming Summit, while discussing Canada’s approach to online gambling, panelists could not refrain from citing Ontario’s track record as proof of how a competitive, regulated market can capture most of the online play. Research shows regulated platforms in Ontario account for over 86% of online gambling activity. On top of that, the market is growing year-over-year and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) is doing a great job at matching those gains, panelists said.
“What OLG has been able to do is demonstrate to other lottery corporations that this isn’t a big scary thing. Lottery corporations can grow their market share and earn more revenue, all while taking in unregulated play and earning that extra revenue, as has been demonstrated in Ontario.”
Relating this success to the situation in Québec, Gauthier said:
“As a monopoly and a corporation (Loto-Québec) that wants to keep a monopoly, which is normal, it chooses what kind of information they bring. They don’t have an advantage to advertise the fact that the regulating private operation in Ontario is working. That’s why Québecers are not presented with, I think, a fair perspective of what is going on in Ontario, how this system has helped channel the grey market, and how it has improved their responsible gaming environment. If you only protect 20 or 25% of the players, how good is this? We have to talk about the success of the Ontario model and how it could benefit.”
Alberta’s Online Gambling Plans Will Cause Quebec to Rethink Monopoly Model
Alberta’s move to a regulated online gambling market will add fuel to the fire for change in Quebec. The Alberta government says it will open its market as early as 2026, one of only two provinces to allow private operators.
Unlike Ontario, Alberta will keep its current Crown corporation, Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC), in a dual role as both regulator and operator through its Play Alberta platform.
“Alberta’s case is very interesting for Québec, because Play Alberta is both the regulator and the operator, and it’s the same situation with Loto-Québec,” Gauthier says. “That’s not how you build confidence, it’s not a proper governance structure. So, Alberta, I hope they will address this issue. All operators, public or private, should respond to the same rules and to an independent regulator. So I think Alberta’s case will bring this specific issue, and an example for Québec.”
A recent study by the Canadian Gaming Association and Ipsos found that nearly 90% of Alberta’s online gambling activity is currently on unregulated sites. According to Gauthier, once Alberta launches its regulated market, data on how much play shifts from offshore platforms will help the case for Quebec to open up.
“What we have to do to move the needle is to show how the current situation doesn’t respond to the current challenge,” she said. “Actually, it’s not relevant anymore. And the more examples we can show — this is what happened in Ontario, this is what happened in Alberta, this is what happened in other countries — the more examples and data points you get, the more reassuring it is. It’s not something crazy to do. It’s been tested elsewhere, even in Canada in the same legal framework. So I think that’s where we can bring change.”
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