The second Canadian province to expand beyond lottery-offered gaming products is now live as regulated online sports betting in Alberta launched Monday.
Sports betting in Alberta is now available at a range of regulated sportsbooks. Operators are also launching their Alberta online casinos at the same time. Details on the launch can be found here.
While a mid-July launch is not exactly the best time for sports betting, Alberta residents will have the Canadian Football League and Major League Baseball as their main leagues available until the National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League all resume beginning in September.
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Who is launching sports betting in Alberta?
Anyone familiar with the largest sportsbook brands in North America will be plenty comfortable with the operators launching in Alberta.
The approvals list includes the top two sports betting brands this side of the Atlantic in DraftKings and FanDuel. Other well-known brands that will likely fight for a large share in the betting market include bet365, BetMGM and Caesars.
Of course, the big prize in Alberta is not the chance to offer sports betting, but online casino. That means there will be some operators vying for online sports betting customers with the hopes of cross-selling them into their casino product.
Look for operators like Bally Bet, Penn Entertainment‘s theScore Bet and Rush Street International‘s BetRivers to be actively acquiring betting customers around launch.
Props, parlays and more
There was a time when those in the Great White North had to jealously watch as their southern neighbors opened up legal, single-game betting state by state beginning in June 2018.
While Canada allowed parlays before then, single-game sports betting did not come to Canada until August 2021. That meant that bets on regulated sites before that had to be parlays of two legs or more.
Along with single bets and parlays, Alberta sportsbooks will offer:
- Futures
- In-game betting
- Moneylines
- Player props
- Same-game parlays
- Spread betting
- Team props
- Totals
