The legal battle over Ontario’s cross-border iGaming plans has intensified as the Supreme Court of Canada officially granted Loto-Québec permission to join the provincial appeal.
The Québec crown corporation joins a coalition that already includes the lottery bodies of British Columbia, Manitoba, and the Atlantic provinces in challenging Ontario’s right to offer peer-to-peer games like poker and DFS across borders.
The “Slippery Slope” Argument
The Canadian Lottery Coalition (CLC) argues that Ontario’s push for international liquidity violates the Criminal Code, which they contend only permits provinces to operate lottery schemes “in that province.” The coalition fears that allowing poker players to connect globally could set a dangerous precedent for the expansion of other gambling verticals.
“While the issue today is international liquidity, the next case may involve a province seeking to assert authority to conduct lottery schemes that extend across the country,” the Atlantic Lottery Corporation cautioned in its factum.
Alberta and Global Operators Join the Fray
Countering the coalition, the Attorney General of Alberta has filed a motion to intervene in support of Ontario. Alberta is set to launch its own commercial iGaming market on July 13, 2026, and officials are eager to link their player pools with Ontario’s.
Industry titans like Flutter and GGPoker have also filed factums with the Supreme Court of Canada, accusing the lottery corporations of making “irrelevant and unjustified allegations” regarding the legality of private operators.
Flutter emphasized that the law allows provinces to manage their schemes as they see fit, regardless of where the players are physically located. NSUS, owner of the World Series of Poker, promised that the proposed model would not infringe on other provinces’ regulatory rights, as it would remain a provincially licensed and managed scheme.
