Ontario has achieved the highest rate of channelization since introducing a competitive online gambling market in April 2022. The 2026 Ipsos survey conducted for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and iGaming Ontario found that 91.1% of respondents who had gambled online in Ontario in the previous three months had used a regulated website. This marks an increase of 7.4 percentage points from the 83.7% registered in 2025.
Survey Shows a Clear Break From 2025
The trend was also clear on the other end of the market. Only 8.9% of respondents reported using only unregulated websites. In 2025, that number was 16.3%.
Ipsos conducted the research from March 30 through April 20, 2026, covering a total of 2,012 Ontario residents aged 19 and older. The margin of error for the representative population sample was plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 out of 20 times.
Legal Sites Regain Lost Ground
This finding is significant since Ontario’s regulated market performed worse in the previous study. In 2023, the channelization was 85.3%, while in 2024, it was 86.4%. After this peak, it fell to 83.7% in 2025. The 2026 level of 91.1% indicates a return to a better performance than seen before.
The findings provide new justification for Ontario’s approach to online gambling. The province chose a competitive regulated model in which private operators can serve the market only through the provincial framework.
Before the launch in 2022, Ontario estimated that 70% of online gambling activities occurred on unregulated sites. Based on the Ipsos data released in May 2026, much of this activity now appears to be taking place inside the supervised system.
The Offshore Risk Has Not Disappeared
While the unregulated-only figure of 8.9% is low, it is still a policy problem. AGCO says that regulated operators must comply with standards on responsible gambling, game integrity, and consumer protection. Unregulated sites, according to the regulator, lack the required measures in terms of player safety, data protection, and risks related to money laundering and match-fixing.
Takeaways from the Survey
The latest survey does not end the debate over Ontario’s iGaming model. It does show that channelization is moving in the right direction again.
Therefore, Ontario faces two challenges here. First, it has to make sure its legal operators stay attractive to users. Second, it needs to reduce the available offshore gambling space without driving players into less trackable ones.
