According to a recent report, gaming revenue in the United States rose by 7.2% to hit $18.96 billion in the third quarter of 2025.
This marked the best quarter for revenue since 2022, with Connecticut and Michigan among the top earners in the country. But while the US market is undoubtedly roaring back after the uncertainty of the last two years, it’s still not as strong as perhaps it should be.
In fact, if you look across the border to Canada, where regulated iGaming has been expanding, it is lagging behind.
The Case for the US
To compare the US and Canada, however, it’s first important to gather context. In the case of the US, the iGaming industry is highly fragmented. Online casino gaming is regulated at the state level, not federally, meaning each state decides whether to legalize, regulate, tax, or ban iGaming altogether.
As of 2026, only a handful of states, including New Jersey, Michigan, and Connecticut, allow full-scale regulated online gaming, with large population states – and sports-mad, including the host of this year’s Super Bowl, which has a great impact on the local economy – like California and Texas remaining offline.
This patchwork system has created several challenges. For starters, operators must navigate different licensing requirements and compliance rules in every state they enter, driving up costs and slowing expansion. For players, too, this has resulted in an inconsistent experience, where access to legal iGaming depends entirely on geography.
The same is true for Canada, that’s true, but there’s been a difference in scale and momentum. In the US, legislative progress has been slow and, in some cases, stalled entirely, with political resistance and concerns around responsible gambling frequently delaying any efforts to expand. In Canada, however, momentum has been strong.
Over the last few years alone, various provinces have moved more decisively to modernize their online gambling frameworks, providing clearer regulatory pathways for operators and, as such, more consistency for consumers.
As we mentioned, 2025 was strong for the US, and there are a few reasons for this. The states that do offer regulated iGaming, for instance, have begun to mature, benefiting from more established player bases and more efficient marketing spend.
Regulatory stability has also helped restore confidence across the industry, with clearer compliance expectations and fewer sudden policy shifts. Effectively, this has encouraged consolidation, allowing larger, better-resourced operators to strengthen their market positions and invest more heavily in long-term sustainability.
The Case for Canada
Canada, meanwhile, has been showing strength in the market for a few years now. It all started in Ontario in 2022, when the province launched a regulated online gambling framework that opened the market to private operators.
This marked a significant shift away from the previously restricted model and set a new standard for how iGaming could operate at the provincial level. And other provinces have followed suit. Alberta, for instance, is actively moving toward a regulated iGaming market, while the Atlantic provinces like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia offer online gaming through the ALC’s shared platforms.
Looking at Alberta specifically, this is perhaps the strongest sign that Canada is formulating a system that works. Although the framework is not to come into effect until early 2026, it seems to be following an almost identical regime to Ontario, using the same competitive structure that allows private operators to enter the market under a centralized regulatory body.
In Alberta’s case, oversight will sit with the AGLC – Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission – and be supported by a new subsidiary, the Alberta iGaming Corporation, which will act as the market facilitator, mirroring the role played by iGaming Ontario. The inference here is that Ontario has landed upon a successful system.
As more provinces adopt their own frameworks, this is likely to be repeated – barring a few necessary adjustments – until Canada as a whole becomes far more of a unified iGaming hub. As this occurs, more players will also jump on board, as it will become easier to identify legitimate operators and distinguish regulated platforms from unlicensed ones.
Indeed, that ease of identification is already in place. One of the clearest benefits of Canada’s more unified regulatory approach is how it impacts player experience, particularly around payments and withdrawals. Licensed operators are required to meet strict standards around verification, transparency, and payout processing, which has led to noticeably faster withdrawal times across the market. As a result, finding a good, safe, instant withdrawal casino in Canada now only takes a quick search, with comparison platforms making it easier to identify trusted operators and get players gaming more seamlessly.
Is Canada Overtaking the US?
It’s not enough to look at the overall landscape and say that Canada is definitely overtaking the US. There are more nuances to it than that. In terms of revenue, the US still commands a significantly larger share of the North American iGaming market, driven by its population size and the sheer scale of its established regulated states.
Even with slower expansion, markets like New Jersey and Michigan continue to generate substantial returns that Canada has yet to consistently match. But when revenue is viewed through other lenses – such as growth rate, market efficiency, and regulatory momentum – the picture becomes a lot more interesting.
Canada has a cohesive framework that more provinces are going to be adopting, and as participation continues, there’s no reason why it can’t close the gap. But that all depends on where the US expansion will continue to be slow. With the latest quarter bringing the US iGaming scene back into the spotlight, that’s not necessarily a given.
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