Canada's top court spent nearly three hours on October 7 weighing a question that could redefine how online poker works north of the border: can Ontario legally let its regulated players compete against people in other countries? The case, Atlantic Lottery Corporation et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario, pits the province against a coalition of provincial lottery corporations and arrives after years of friction over how far Ontario's iGaming experiment can stretch under federal criminal law.
Why Ontario Wants Bigger Player Pools
Since launching its regulated iGaming market in April 2022, Ontario has built a system of more than 50 licensed operators covering sports betting, casino games, and online poker. Alberta has since adopted a similar structure. But Ontario's poker offering has operated inside a ring-fenced provincial pool, meaning tournament fields, prize pools, and game variety are limited to players physically within the province. That constraint puts regulated platforms at a disadvantage against unregulated offshore sites that draw from a global player base and can therefore offer larger guarantees and deeper tournament fields. Ontario's proposed fix is to allow licensed platforms to connect provincial players with international liquidity pools while keeping the games themselves under provincial regulatory oversight. In November 2025, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled 4-1 that this model would be lawful, a decision several lottery corporations then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Legal Fight Over "Conduct and Manage"
At the heart of the dispute is Section 207(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, which gives provinces the authority to conduct and manage gaming schemes within their borders. Ontario argues that bringing international players into a game it regulates does not strip the province of that authority, since the activity offered to Ontarians remains under its control. Opposing lottery corporations, represented through the Canadian Alliance for Regulated Gaming, argue the statute was never meant to cover schemes involving participants outside Canada, and that Ontario's interpretation stretches provincial jurisdiction beyond what Parliament intended. They have also raised a separate worry: that operators licensed only in Ontario could use the province as a foothold to reach players in British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, or Atlantic Canada without the proper provincial authorization, effectively using Ontario's framework as a springboard into markets where they have no license to operate. Ontario's counsel rejected that characterization, insisting that no cross-provincial participation would occur without formal agreements between governments.
The justices probed both positions closely. Justice Malcolm Rowe questioned whether a contractual arrangement with an international partner could genuinely amount to Ontario conducting and managing the game, while Justice Mahmud Jamal pressed on whether every element of a gaming activity must physically occur within the province for the law to be satisfied. Rowe later summarized the Court's narrow mandate plainly: the justices are there to determine what the statute permits, not to referee the commercial interests of competing lottery corporations.
What a Ruling Would and Wouldn't Change
A ruling in Ontario's favor would not instantly switch on international liquidity. Operators and the province would still need to negotiate technical integrations and regulatory arrangements before players could actually face international opponents. The effects would also likely extend beyond poker and DFS, feeding into Alberta's own plans as it develops its regulated market and considers similar cross-border arrangements. Separately, Ontario and Alberta have discussed a domestic agreement to share players between their two provinces, an arrangement governed by existing interprovincial frameworks in the Criminal Code rather than the question now before the Supreme Court. That domestic deal has not been finalized and does not depend on the Court's ruling.
- Ontario's poker market has operated as a ring-fenced, single-province pool since April 2022.
- The Supreme Court has reserved judgment with no announced timeline for a decision.
- A favorable ruling would require further regulatory and technical work before implementation.
- Interprovincial liquidity, such as a possible Ontario-Alberta deal, is a separate legal matter from international pooling.
Until the Court rules, Ontario's regulated poker platforms remain confined to domestic players, and operators, provincial regulators, and rival lottery corporations across Canada are left waiting to see how far provincial authority over gaming actually extends.