Poker Liquidity on Trial at Canada's Supreme Court

^{Legal experts tell Casinos.com that Alberta and Ontario are likely to win the right to share poker liquidity with the U.S. and beyond. Lottery officials disagree. (Image: P. Spiro/Alamy )}

A pivotal case before Canada’s Supreme Court will determine whether many of the nation’s online poker players can compete against players in other countries, with potential liquidity overtures to U.S. states expected should Ontario and its allies win out.

Oct. 7 will see the culmination of a long-running effort by Ontario’s gambling officials to allow its licensed online poker operators to share player pools with regulated international jurisdictions.

Its chances of success are high, according to local experts on gambling law.

“My expectation is that the Supreme Court will agree with the Court of Appeal opinion,” attorney Don Bourgeois told Casinos.com.

Bourgeois, now with the Fogler Rubinoff law firm, is the former general counsel of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).

Meet the Players

Ontario has collected a crew of supporters, known as “interveners,” who will speak before the court to back up the province.

Most notably, this includes the attorney general of Alberta, whose province became only the second in Canada in July to open its online gambling market to the private sector.

A finding by the court that Ontario has the legal standing to strike liquidity deals with international partners would also be hugely significant for Alberta and the operators licensed there, granting the western province the same powers to grow its poker player pools.

The potential value of the ruling is underscored by the other members of Ontario’s squad: the Canadian Gaming Association; Toronto-headquartered NSUS Group, which operates GGPoker; and global gambling giant Flutter, which owns PokerStars.

The efforts are being opposed by provincial lotteries from regions that have yet to open up their iGaming markets and which continue to be run as monopolies controlled by state-owned lottery firms.

Leading this group is the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, which operates gambling across four of Canada’s Atlantic provinces: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

They are joined in opposition by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation, the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation and Loto-Québec.

What Are the Odds?

The case is a form of appeal, with the lotteries hoping to overturn a ruling by the Court of Appeal in November 2025 that if Ontario began looking beyond its borders for more poker players, it would not be violating the federal Criminal Code.

Gambling law experts in Canada believe the odds are very much in Ontario’s favour.

Victory for the province would allow its officials to reach out to jurisdictions in other nations in the hopes of making deals that would combine player pools.

The peculiarities of Canada’s gambling law mean that, even in Alberta and Ontario, a state lottery unit needs to “conduct and manage” gambling activities within each province.

Hence why private operators with licences issued by regulators also need to be registered with government-run commercial agencies iGaming Ontario or the Alberta iGaming Corporation in order to remain compliant.

The contention of Ontario and Alberta is that online poker games can be shared with other regions anywhere in the world with a regulated online poker market but still remain legal under Canada’s lottery-centric model.

“Ontario’s position is that it can develop the conceptual approach so that a lottery scheme would be conducted and managed in Ontario by iGaming Ontario in which liquidity ... from players in other jurisdictions where, for Canadian law [purposes], those players are participating in a lottery scheme in that jurisdiction,” Bourgeois explained.

A belief in likely victory for Ontario is echoed by other local legal experts.

Michael D. Lipton of Dickinson Wright law firm in Toronto, who has himself argued cases before the Supreme Court, said: “I believe Ontario has a very strong case and I expect the Supreme Court will dismiss the appeal, thus endorsing the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that supported poker liquidity.”

Warming Up for the World Stage

First on the list for Ontario and Alberta will likely be to join hands in permitting operators licensed in both provinces, such as GGPoker, BetMGM, 888 and PokerStars (via FanDuel), to merge their tables.

This does not depend on the court case, as it is already technically permitted given the primacy of lotteries in Canadian law and the precedent set by various cross-border lottery enterprises within the nation, including an existing online poker offering.

Although neither province has so far publicly confirmed that it will seek to reach across the country to link arms, there is an expectation that a team-up is in the works.

The AGCO did not respond to questions from Casinos.com about when or with whom it would try to create poker liquidity, but an Alberta Gaming, Liquor & Cannabis (AGLC) spokesperson gave us this statement:

“AGLC is aware of the pending court proceedings and is closely monitoring the situation.

“At this time, we are not in a position to comment on potential future developments in Alberta.”

Victory at the Supreme Court would allow Ontario, and by extension Alberta, to strike deals with international jurisdictions.

“Once the ‘cat is out of the bag,’ Ontario will move forward and seek to engage with jurisdictions such as Alberta, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to increase liquidity,” predicted Lipton.

The group of U.S. states that currently share online poker markets with one another are indeed likely to be top of the list.

Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are all empowered to share networks via the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement, although in practice not all of them are currently interlinked and liquidity pools vary from operator to operator.

If Ontario is given the go-ahead to broker poker deals internationally, it is by no means limited to partnering with the United States.

Go East, Young Man?

As Canada and the European Union appear to be coming closer together than ever before, with the EU offering the country its first-ever associate membership, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Canada could look east for more liquidity.

France, Italy, Spain and Portugal all signed an agreement in 2017 that permits shared liquidity, although Italy has so far failed to join the group and looks set to remain on the sidelines for now.

Whichever path Ontario and Alberta choose to walk should they win in Ottawa next month, there remains plenty of road to travel before liquidity in any form can go live.

“Assuming the Supreme Court accepts the majority opinion, much work needs to be done,” said Bourgeois.