Quebec Online Gaming Coalition Celebrates Second Anniversary with Salvo Against Loto Quebec

Posted on: May 9, 2025, 11:38h. 

Last updated on: May 9, 2025, 11:48h.

Mark Keast Read More
Expertise: Canadian Gaming, iGaming, Las Vegas, Sports Betting, NFL, Boxing, UFC.
  • Quebec Online Gaming Coalition celebrates second anniversary
  • Coalition dedicated to bringing in Ontario-style iGaming market 
  • Loto Québec admits it reaches just 50% of province’s online players

The Quebec Online Gaming Coalition is celebrating its second anniversary, seemingly no closer to its original objective of tearing down Quebec’s online gaming monopoly than when it started.

Loto Quebec reveals this week they are reaching just 50% of the province’s online players, which the group advocating for an Ontario-style open market jumped on. (Image: Loto Quebec)

The Coalition was launched in May 2023 when Betway, Bet99, DraftKings, Entain, Flutter, Games Global, Rush Street Interactive, and Apricot Investments came together, committed to working with the Quebec government and local stakeholders to develop a new regulatory framework for the province that would compete with government-owned Loto Québec, the only legal entity for online gaming.

Meanwhile, Ontario, which launched a regulated iGaming market with private operators in April 2022, and with the iGaming Alberta Act about to become law, hasn’t seen a lot of movement toward a similar model despite a market launch there believed to be taking place in early 2026.

This week, in a review of Loto Québec’s budget estimate by the crown corporation’s president, Jean-Francois Bergeron, it was revealed that Loto Québec reaches 50% of the province’s online players. 

Gaming Coalition Calls for Ontario Model

A spokesperson from the Coalition also pointed to comments made by Finance Minister Eric Girard that the provincial government has no legal way to enforce Loto Québec’s online monopoly.

That raises serious questions,” said Ariane Gauthier, spokesperson for the Quebec Online Gaming Coalition. “How can the government justify protecting only one in two online players when, in Ontario, opening the market to private operators has resulted in 83.7% of online gaming activity being conducted within a regulated environment?

“Given these facts, one must ask why the government remains committed to maintaining Loto-Québec’s monopoly — a model that is clearly failing?”

Not Interested in Competition

In an article published in La Tribune in Sherbrooke, QC, in February 2024, a spokesperson for Girard said the provincial government there won’t be following Ontario’s lead and won’t be creating a market that competes with the Loto-Québec monopoly, citing “overexposure to online gambling advertisements and a trivialization of gambling,” according to the reporting.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Loto Québec told Casino.org that it’s entertaining getting involved in a new “national sports betting solution” currently being undertaken by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the Atlantic Corporation, that calls for a new national sports betting platform under the “Proline” banner.

“The British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) and Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC) have acknowledged that their current model no longer suited to the realities of online gaming and try to innovate,” Gauthier told Casino.org. “In contrast, Loto-Québec goes in the same direction and already launched a new platform of its own this year. Consolidating public monopolies, with or without Quebec’s participation, will not displace the private online gaming market. Sooner or later, the governments of British Columbia, the Atlantic provinces, and Quebec will need to modernize their regulatory frameworks to address this evolving landscape.”