Premier Doug Ford has appointed Zee Hamid as Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming, putting him in charge of iGaming Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. He steps into a portfolio overseeing a market that has generated CAD 12.97 billion in gross gambling revenue since its April 2022 launch through August 2026, according to a report from Gaming News Canada.
The scale of that inheritance is significant. Ontario’s regulated iGaming market has expanded rapidly since going live, producing CAD 2.59 billion in tax revenue over the same period, per the same reporting. OLG’s own online platform accounts for roughly 20% of total market activity and sits outside iGO’s site-level figures, meaning the true footprint of regulated play in the province is larger than headline numbers from iGO alone suggest.
Hamid also inherits an active file. Ontario’s ministry was already running a high-level review of the gambling industry before former minister Stan Cho’s resignation, and that work now falls to his desk.
Consumer protection and AML in focus
The review centres on strengthening responsible-gambling programming, improving transparency around where responsible-gambling funding actually goes, and pushing wider promotion of BetGuard, Ontario’s centralized self-exclusion program. Enforcement gaps around unregulated advertising are also flagged, including social-media promotion of fake online casinos and broadcast ads for offshore brands operating outside the licensed system.
Anti-money-laundering controls remain a parallel priority. Cho had previously called for improvements to audits, financial oversight and AML initiatives, a push that carries added weight as FINTRAC has been increasing fines. Ontario’s approach to advertising oversight may draw comparison with Alberta’s iGaming advertising rules as that market prepares to launch.
Retail casinos, horse racing and Quebec’s next move
Beyond online policy, Hamid faces pressure to improve outcomes for Ontario’s 30 retail casinos, with calls for closer integration between online and land-based play. Caesars and Hard Rock rewards programs are cited as models, alongside pressure on Great Canadian Entertainment and Gateway Casinos to align more closely with that approach. Horse racing also sits in his brief, with Ontario having authorized an additional CAD 35 million annually for five years for a sector supporting roughly 18,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
Quebec’s political landscape may add urgency to Ontario’s example. Liberal leader Charles Milliard has proposed expanding the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux to license and oversee all online gambling platforms, paired with an independent, industry-funded addiction-prevention body. Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon endorsed the idea, pointing to the additional revenue Ontario has collected since regulating online sports betting, though the governing Coalition Avenir Québec continues to resist reform and still recognizes Loto-Québec as the province’s sole legal operator.
For operators and players, the near-term questions are concrete: whether Ontario’s review yields firm changes to advertising rules, responsible-gambling standards and AML enforcement, and whether Quebec’s next government converts campaign promises into legislation. With Alberta also building out its own regulated framework, advertising standards and consumer-protection enforcement look set to remain a cross-provincial pressure point.
Source: Bonus.com
Petra Vanhoof has spent the better part of a decade following the shifting tides of gambling regulation across Europe and beyond. She came up through the compliance side of the industry before pivoting to writing, which gives her a grounded, no-nonsense perspective on the rules, loopholes, and political maneuvering that shape how operators actually do business. She is particularly drawn to the gap between what regulators say and what the market ends up doing in response.