Quebec's new government backs licensing private online casinos, but Loto-Québec stays the only legal site for now

Quebec has a new government, and both of the province's two largest parties now say they want private online gambling sites to be licensed. The Parti Québécois (PQ) won Monday's election, 5 October 2026, taking 59 of the 127 seats in the Assemblée nationale du Québec. That is five short of a majority, so leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will head a minority government. The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) won 40 seats and becomes the official opposition, the Conservatives (PCQ) 19 and Québec solidaire 9. The outgoing Coalition avenir Québec lost every seat.

For anyone in Quebec, the practical answer comes first: nothing has changed yet. Loto-Québec, the provincial Crown corporation, is still the only operator authorised to offer online casino games and sports betting in the province. No bill has been tabled, no launch date exists and no private operator holds a Quebec online licence.

What the parties proposed

The most detailed plan came from the Liberals. On 9 September, Liberal leader Charles Milliard proposed requiring every online gambling platform serving Quebec to hold a provincial licence. The Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ), which today regulates alcohol, horse racing and gaming, would get a wider mandate to license and supervise those sites. The plan also included stricter rules on advertising, addiction prevention and underage gambling, an independent non-profit body funded by the industry to prevent and treat problem gambling, and a request that Quebec's financial and gambling regulators look at prediction markets.

During the campaign, St-Pierre Plamondon said he would adopt that approach. "Mr. Milliard says, and he's right, I've looked into it, that online sports betting in Quebec is like the Wild West," he said in an interview quoted by Covers. "American companies come in, run ads, and operate without regulation." He pointed to Ontario, which he said had cleaned up the sector and collected more tax as a result. The PQ also told Radio-Canada it would follow a similar regulatory approach.

The seat count matters here. A minority government needs votes from at least one other party to pass a law. Together, the PQ and the Liberals hold 99 of the 127 seats, so on this one issue the new government and the official opposition are on the same side.

What has to happen before anything opens

A shared campaign position is not a legal framework, and the gaps are large. When the Liberal plan was announced, the law firm Segev LLP noted, as reported by Canada Gaming Review, that it named no tax or revenue-sharing rate, no timetable, no transition path for operators already serving Quebec without a licence, and no position on whether Loto-Québec would compete with the new licensees.

There is also a structural problem. Under section 207(1)(a) of Canada's Criminal Code, provinces may "conduct and manage" gambling themselves. That is why the two provinces with open markets each use two bodies. In Ontario, private operators register with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and sign operating agreements with iGaming Ontario. Alberta created the Alberta iGaming Corporation for the same conducting role. The Liberal plan named the RACJ as regulator but no provincial body to conduct and manage the games, and Segev argued that a licensing-only model may not fit the federal rule.

The Canadian Gaming Association made a similar point. "It's important to remember that in Quebec, Loto-Québec is not regulated by La Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux du Québec (RACJ)," senior vice president Amanda Brewer told Casino.org. "So the province would need to establish a regulator and likely a conduct and manage entity like iGO and AiGC, so I wouldn't use 'fast' to describe anything that may happen in Quebec."

The first fixed date is procedural. Radio-Canada reports that the 44th legislature opens on 17 November, with the new premier's opening speech. That speech will show whether online gambling is on the early agenda. Even then, a bill, a vote, regulations and a licensing process would all have to follow.

How big is the unlicensed share?

Nobody agrees on how much online gambling in Quebec already happens outside Loto-Québec, and the estimates come mostly from interested parties:

• Loto-Québec cites Léger research saying 81% of Quebec online players use lotoquebec.com.
• A University of Lethbridge study, cited by Covers, found 79.4% of Quebec online gamblers used the provincial site.
• A 2025 estimate by the analytics firm Blask put Loto-Québec's share at 17%.
• The Quebec Online Gaming Coalition (QOGC), whose members include DraftKings, Flutter, Entain, Betway, Bet99, Rush Street and Apricot, says the single-operator model costs the province more than C$300 million a year in tax. Segev noted that this figure extrapolates Ontario's results to Quebec's adult population rather than measuring Quebec directly.

The high figures count how many players use Loto-Québec's site at all, which says little about where most of the money goes; Loto-Québec itself argues that players spend nearly twice as much on illegal sites. The estimates are best read as positions in a policy debate rather than settled facts.

The coalition is, unsurprisingly, optimistic. "Even in the context of a minority government, there's a strong alignment of interests here," spokesperson Ariane Gauthier told Covers. She also told Casino.org that choosing the rules and the regulator "will take some time".

The neighbours as a reference

Ontario opened its private market in April 2022 and, according to Casino.org, now has 49 licensed operators running 84 sites. Alberta's private market went live in July 2026 (see our report on Games Global entering Alberta). Ontario's experience also shows that opening a market raises harm-prevention questions: research from ICES found that gambling-disorder emergency visits in Ontario rose well above expected levels after the 2022 expansion. Any Quebec framework will be judged on that point as well as on tax revenue.

What it means for players in Quebec

For now, the legal online option in Quebec is Loto-Québec, and a change of government does not make any other site legal. If a licensed private market does arrive, it will come through a law passed at the Assemblée nationale and a public list of authorised operators, not through an announcement on a casino's own site. We will report when a bill is tabled.

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