Online Sports Betting Statistics Updated November 2026

Human Written & Fact Checked · Updated

100 Canada Sports Betting Statistics for 2026

Canada does not have one uniform sports-betting dataset. Provincial lottery accounts, Ontario's regulated private-operator workbook and student surveys measure different populations and financial concepts. Treating them as interchangeable would produce a misleading national estimate.

This article separates sports-business revenue, broader Ontario betting activity, unsettled wagers and Ontario student behaviour. It includes historical comparisons alongside recent reporting, with each period identified. Some business measures combine retail and online activity; Ontario's broader betting category includes products beyond sport. Updated November 2026.

Headline figures

  • Ontario's broader betting category recorded C$1,074 million in cash wagers in September 2026. (iGaming Ontario, Oct 2026)
  • Ontario's broader betting category recorded C$69.1 million in NAGGR in September 2026. (iGaming Ontario, Oct 2026)
  • Betting represented 11% of Ontario regulated private-operator cash wagers in September 2026. (iGaming Ontario, Oct 2026)
  • 10% of surveyed Ontario students reported past-year online sports gambling in the 2025 OSDUHS. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 14.9% of surveyed male Ontario students reported past-year online sports gambling in 2025. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 4.7% of surveyed female Ontario students reported past-year online sports gambling in 2025. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • BCLC reported C$35,745 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2026. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2026: C$1,236 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • BCLC introduced 4 additional sportsbook lounges in FY 2025/2026. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • Atlantic Lottery reported online sports wagering growth of 10% for FY 2024/25. (Atlantic Lottery, Oct 2025)
  • Atlantic Lottery reported active online sports players growth of 7% for FY 2024/25. (Atlantic Lottery, Oct 2025)
  • Atlantic Lottery reported sports net revenue of C$13.2 million for FY 2024/25. (Atlantic Lottery, Oct 2025)

What do provincial lottery sports accounts report?

Provincial accounts reveal individual businesses, not a consolidated Canadian market. Preserve product definitions and reporting years before comparing their sports revenue.

How has BCLC's reported sports revenue changed?

  • BCLC reported C$30,786 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2025. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • BCLC reported C$37,016 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2024. (BCLC, Aug 2025)
  • BCLC reported C$39,029 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2023. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • BCLC reported C$31,677 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2022. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • BCLC reported C$23,902 thousand in total sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2021. (BCLC, Aug 2022)
  • BCLC reported C$25,326 thousand in sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2020. (BCLC, Aug 2021)
  • BCLC reported C$26,390 thousand in sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2019. (BCLC, Jul 2019)
  • BCLC reported C$20,852 thousand in sports revenue for the year ended 31 March 2018 (restated). (BCLC, Jul 2019)

BCLC reports sports revenue in its annual financial statements. These are revenue figures, not total stakes or operator profit.

How do wagered and administered games differ?

  • Year ended 31 March 2026, wagered games: C$34,884 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • Year ended 31 March 2026, administered games: C$861 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • Year ended 31 March 2025, wagered games: C$30,088 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • Year ended 31 March 2025, administered games: C$698 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • Year ended 31 March 2024, wagered games: C$35,459 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2025)
  • Year ended 31 March 2024, administered games: C$1,557 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2025)
  • Year ended 31 March 2023, wagered games: C$37,443 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • Year ended 31 March 2023, administered games: C$1,586 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • Year ended 31 March 2022, wagered games: C$29,858 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • Year ended 31 March 2022, administered games: C$1,819 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)

BCLC's financial notes separate wagered games from administered games within sports revenue. These accounting categories are not an online-versus-retail split, and they should not be relabelled as such. Keep the two components aligned to the same fiscal year when comparing them.

What do distribution and sales changes tell us?

  • BCLC introduced 2 initial sportsbook lounges in FY 2024/2025. (BCLC, Aug 2025)
  • Atlantic Lottery reported PROLINE sales growth of 3% for FY 2024/25. (Atlantic Lottery, Oct 2025)

BCLC's sportsbook lounges describe retail distribution, while Atlantic Lottery's PROLINE sales change describes a different regional business. Neither observation is a national online-adoption estimate. A physical lounge opening does not establish how much incremental betting occurred or whether it replaced another channel. Likewise, sales growth differs from net-revenue growth because payouts and other accounting factors affect the latter. Atlantic Lottery's online wagering and active-player measures appear in the takeaways with their original scope. Those measures do not identify a national number of customers. Use these observations as distribution and business-performance context, and retain the original publisher when reporting them. The available evidence does not support adding provincial lottery figures to Ontario private-operator totals to manufacture a Canadian market size.

How has Ontario's broader betting category changed?

Ontario provides a detailed monthly series, but its betting category extends beyond sport. Every observation in this section refers to that broader category and excludes OLG and horse-racing pari-mutuel wagers.

What do spring and summer 2025 observations show?

These monthly observations separate cash wagers from non-adjusted gross gaming revenue, or NAGGR. The category includes sports, esports, proposition, novelty and exchange betting. Cash wagers exclude bonuses. Revenue is not profit, and the monthly figures remain subject to revision. The source is one regulator workbook instead of independently corroborated national data.

How did the series develop from autumn 2025 into winter 2026?

The following months use the same broader betting definition. Cash wagering and NAGGR are separate measures, so their movements need not match from month to month. Do not interpret a seasonal change as proof of a particular cause.

What changed during spring and summer 2026?

The more recent monthly observations retain the workbook's category and accounting boundaries. The latest September observations are reserved for the takeaways instead of repeated here. These figures describe the regulated private-operator market covered by iGaming Ontario. They cannot be treated as all gambling in the province or as Canada-wide sports-only totals.

Why are unsettled sports wagers different from revenue?

A balance-sheet snapshot is not an annual flow. BCLC's unsettled sports wagers are liabilities at the reporting date, so they cannot be added to annual revenue or presented as annual betting handle.

What do recent year-end balances measure?

  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2025: C$1,209 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2026)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2024: C$1,432 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2025)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2023: C$1,337 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2022: C$1,000 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2023)

The financial notes report sports wagers outstanding at each fiscal year end. These are positions awaiting settlement, not the amount wagered across the entire preceding year. A larger closing balance does not establish a larger annual market. It can depend on when customers place bets, when events conclude and how outstanding wagers are classified. The observations should therefore be compared at equivalent reporting dates. They are also distinct from accounts payable, player deposits and other liabilities unless the source explicitly combines those categories. Keep the original units when quoting the table: its figures are expressed in thousands of Canadian dollars. The current-year balance is shown in the takeaways, while these observations preserve the earlier comparable dates.

How should older balance-sheet observations be used?

  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2021: C$550 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2022)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2020: C$656 thousand. (BCLC, Aug 2021)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2019: C$443 thousand. (BCLC, Jul 2019)
  • BCLC unsettled sports wagers at 31 March 2018: C$843 thousand. (BCLC, Jul 2019)

Older unsettled-wager balances provide historical accounting context. They do not reveal within-year betting activity, customer numbers or the average duration of individual bets. The reporting dates below identify the snapshots precisely, preventing them from being mistaken for calendar-year sales. Comparisons across older financial statements should also retain any restatements or changes in note presentation. A liability can rise or fall independently of the revenue recognised over a year, because the two measures answer different questions. These observations belong in an accounting explanation instead of a market-size total. No estimate of national exposure or consumer losses can be derived from BCLC's closing balances alone.

What does Ontario's student survey show about online sports gambling?

Student prevalence is a separate question from commercial market size. CAMH's findings describe surveyed Ontario students, and changes in question wording limit comparisons across survey years.

How do the latest estimates vary by school grade?

  • 2025, Grade 7: 6.7%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, Grade 8: 7.6%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, Grade 9: 9.7%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, Grade 10: 9.8%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, Grade 11: 12.1%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, Grade 12: 13%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)

The current survey reports self-reported past-year online sports gambling by school grade. These estimates describe the Ontario student sample, not legal-age Canadian adults or verified operator accounts. The questionnaire explicitly includes online sports lotteries, pools and fantasy sports. It therefore measures the behaviour defined in that question instead of a single licensed product. Confidence intervals and survey design matter when interpreting differences between grades. The source chart preserves these uncertainty indicators. Do not turn descriptive subgroup percentages into a ranking of individual schools or assume they identify which operators students used. The survey is a behavioural research instrument, not a census of commercial accounts.

What do the regional estimates establish?

  • 2025, Greater Toronto Area: 11%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, North: 9.9%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, West: 8.4%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2025, East: 10.5%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)

CAMH reports descriptive estimates for Ontario regions, but the regional differences in the latest survey were not statistically significant. The percentages should not be presented as an established regional ranking. A point estimate is not an exact population count. Sampling variability, the questionnaire and the study's school-based population all affect what can be inferred. The geographical groups also differ from the provincial operating areas used in lottery financial reports. Their estimates cannot be combined with sales figures to calculate spending per student. The findings come from one original survey, with no independent matching regional measure identified in this edition. Retain that limitation when discussing where reported behaviour appears more common.

How comparable are the historical survey observations?

  • 2017, All Students: 1.2%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, All Students: 1.4%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, Males: 1.9%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, Males: 2.3%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, Grade 11: 1.3%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, Grade 12: 1%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, Grade 12: 2.5%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, Greater Toronto Area: 1%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, Greater Toronto Area: 1.4%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, North: 2.1%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, West: 1.8%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, West: 1.7%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2017, East: 0.8%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)
  • 2019, East: 1.3%. (CAMH, Aug 2026)

Historical estimates use earlier question wording. The question was omitted from intervening survey waves, and the observations below do not establish that legal or commercial changes caused the later results. All percentages describe past-year online sports gambling within the stated student subgroup. Suppressed cells are omitted, not treated as zero.

Glossary

Methodology and sources

Every figure on this page comes from the organisation that produced it: regulators, statistics offices, public bodies, research institutes, and companies reporting their own data or surveys. Each one links to the original report or dataset and carries its release date. Survey results keep their population and fieldwork period, and financial figures keep the measure the producer used. Figures from different producers are not added together or ranked against each other. The page is reviewed monthly and updated when a producer releases newer data.