ONTARIO’S ECONOMY DOESN’T move in one direction. Manufacturing has been reshaping itself for a decade. The construction sector rides interest-rate cycles. Tech employment in the GTA and Waterloo corridor has plateaued after years of aggressive hiring. But one sector has posted double-digit revenue growth every year since 2022, and it’s not the one most London business owners would guess. Ontario’s regulated digital entertainment market, the one that includes licensed online gaming, interactive platforms and adjacent service providers, cleared CAD 4 billion in gross revenue in 2025. That’s a 34 percent jump from 2024. Monthly wagers in the province topped CAD 9.5 billion in January 2026 and set another record in March at CAD 9.59 billion. For a business audience in southwestern Ontario, those numbers matter less for what they say about gaming and more for what they say about consumer spending patterns, digital infrastructure demand and the kinds of companies that benefit when a new sector scales this fast.
For London business readers watching Ontario’s shifting digital economy, the online entertainment vertical has created a supply chain that touches payments, compliance, customer service and software development. Comparison and information platforms have grown alongside the operators, and a hub like Casino canada has built its model around aggregating operator data for adult consumers making informed choices. That’s a B2C information business running on the same infrastructure that any London-based tech firm uses: cloud hosting, payment APIs, content delivery networks and mobile-first front ends. The sector’s growth is creating business models that translate well beyond gaming.
Here’s the short version. Ontario’s regulated online gaming market launched in April 2022. By the end of 2025, cumulative gross revenue had crossed CAD 10 billion. The full-year 2025 number alone was over CAD 4 billion, up from roughly CAD 3 billion in 2024 and CAD 2.3 billion in 2023. More than 40 licensed operators now run over 80 approved platforms. Monthly handle has been setting records: CAD 9.5 billion in January 2026, CAD 9.59 billion in March. The revenue split leans heavily toward online casino products at about 82 percent, with sports-related products taking the rest. That split matters for business analysis because it means the revenue base isn’t seasonal. It comes in year-round, driven by consumer entertainment spending rather than by the sports calendar. For a London business reader, the analogy is a retail sector that doesn’t have a holiday peak and a January trough. It just grows. And the growth rate hasn’t shown signs of flattening, even as the market has matured from a handful of operators to a crowded competitive field.
Every licensed operator in Ontario needs the same stack of services: payment processing, identity verification, fraud detection, customer support, cloud hosting and content delivery. When there are 40-plus operators handling CAD 9 billion a month in wagers, the demand for those services is significant. Payment processors earn transaction fees on every deposit and withdrawal. KYC providers earn per-verification fees. Cloud hosts earn compute and bandwidth charges. Support providers earn per-seat and per-ticket revenue. None of these companies are gaming companies. They’re technology and financial services firms that happen to count regulated gaming operators among their clients. A London-based fintech firm building payment infrastructure, a Waterloo startup doing identity verification, a Kitchener managed-services provider handling cloud architecture: any of them could be selling into this market. And many of them already are, whether they advertise it or not.
London’s technology sector has been punching above its weight for several years. The city has a cluster of firms in managed IT, cybersecurity and business process automation that compete successfully against Toronto-based rivals. The cost structure is lower. The talent pipeline from Western University and Fanshawe College is steady. And the quality of work is high enough that several London firms have landed clients in the GTA by offering better service at better prices. The regulated digital entertainment market is exactly the kind of client base that plays to London’s strengths. The operators need reliable, cost-effective technology partners. They need them in Ontario for regulatory and data-residency reasons. And they need them to scale quickly, which is something mid-market London firms can do more nimbly than the large consulting practices that dominate Toronto’s enterprise market. The opportunity isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening now, and the companies that recognized it early are already seeing it in their revenue lines. A managed services firm in east London told me last quarter that regulated gaming operators now represent their fastest-growing client segment, and they’re not the only ones.
London’s business community has already demonstrated that smart technology investment can produce outsized results relative to larger markets. London firms outpacing Toronto competitors through managed IT adoption is a pattern that applies directly to the digital entertainment supply chain. The companies that invested early in cloud infrastructure, in automated compliance tooling and in scalable payment systems are the ones capturing revenue from Ontario’s fastest-growing digital sector. The ones that waited are now playing catch-up in a market where the operators have already chosen their primary vendors. Speed of adoption matters. London’s mid-market firms have historically been faster to adopt new technology than their larger competitors, and that advantage translates directly into the kinds of contracts the regulated entertainment market is generating.
The employment side of this story is underreported. Ontario’s regulated digital entertainment market directly employs thousands of people in compliance, customer service, software development, marketing and product management. A growing share of those roles are remote-eligible, which means they can sit in London as easily as in Toronto. The talent requirements are familiar: junior developers, QA testers, data analysts, compliance officers, project managers. These are the same skill sets that London’s tech sector already produces. The difference is that the regulated entertainment market is growing fast enough that it’s absorbing talent at a rate that creates upward pressure on salaries, which benefits the local workforce even if the employer is based elsewhere. For London’s post-secondary institutions, the takeaway is that graduates with skills in payments infrastructure, regulatory compliance and data analytics have a wider market than they did three years ago. For London’s training providers, that means the curriculum needs to catch up. Data analytics, regulatory technology and payments infrastructure are no longer niche specializations. They’re the baseline skills a graduate needs to compete for roles in one of Ontario’s fastest-growing employment categories.
The domestic story sits inside a larger frame. Canada’s digital economy has been growing at a compound rate that outpaces GDP growth for most of the last decade, and the regulated entertainment vertical is now one of the fastest-moving pieces of that picture. U.S. trade analysis of Canada’s digital sector highlights the country’s strengths in e-commerce infrastructure, digital payments and cloud migration, all of which are directly relevant to the digital entertainment supply chain. Canada’s digital transformation market is projected to reach tens of billions in annual value by the late 2020s, driven by the same stack of technologies that powers the regulated gaming market. For a London business audience, the global context reinforces the local opportunity: the skills, infrastructure and vendor relationships that serve Ontario’s digital entertainment market are the same ones that serve every other growing digital vertical.
The business case rests on consumer behaviour. Ontario adults are spending more on digital entertainment and less on physical leisure, and the shift accelerated during and after the pandemic. Household spending on digital entertainment services in Ontario rose roughly 14 percent year over year in early 2026, according to Statistics Canada data. That’s not a one-time bump. It’s a trend that’s been building since 2020 and shows no sign of reversing. The practical implication for businesses is that the consumer wallet is moving. Money that used to go to physical venues, to travel and to in-person entertainment is being redirected, in part, to digital platforms. The regulated entertainment market captures a slice of that spending, but the broader pattern benefits every digital services company. When consumers move their spending online, the infrastructure behind that spending gets busier, and the companies that operate that infrastructure earn more revenue. That’s not a trend with an obvious ceiling in sight.
One thing that separates Ontario’s regulated digital entertainment market from less mature verticals is regulatory clarity. The market opened under a defined framework in April 2022, and that framework has been stable enough to attract sustained investment from operators and their supply chain partners. For business planners, regulatory clarity is a feature. It means contracts with operators aren’t exposed to sudden policy reversals. It means the revenue projections that underpin hiring decisions and capital expenditures have a solid foundation. And it means the Ontario market is likely to remain the largest and most predictable regulated market in Canada for the foreseeable future. Other provinces are exploring liberalization, and if Alberta or BC follows Ontario’s model, the addressable market expands significantly. But even without provincial expansion, Ontario’s market alone is large enough to sustain a healthy supply chain. That kind of regulatory stability is rare in emerging digital sectors, and it gives Ontario-based vendors a planning horizon they can actually build on.
The signals to track are clear. Monthly handle and revenue data from Ontario’s market will show whether growth is accelerating or flattening. Policy developments in Alberta and BC will indicate whether the national addressable market is about to double. Quarterly earnings from TSX-listed payment processors and tech infrastructure firms will reveal how much iGaming revenue is flowing into their top lines. And local indicators, like hiring activity at London tech firms, contract wins from regulated operators and enrollment in digital-skills programs at Western and Fanshawe, will show whether the city is capturing its share of the opportunity. The sector is still young enough that early movers have a meaningful advantage. The infrastructure is built. The consumer spending is real. The regulatory framework is stable. The question for London’s business community isn’t whether the opportunity exists. It’s whether they move quickly enough to take their share of it before the market’s vendor relationships solidify and the window narrows. The sectors that move fast in Ontario’s economy tend to reward the companies that show up early, and this one is no different.
Jill Ellis-Worthington spent decades in the media and communications business. Now she’s dipping her toes into entrepreneurship
Jillian Summers, founder and owner of Upstaging Limited, shares her unique perspective on what it takes to build and sustain…
Rebecca Hynes and Annie Garrett of Harrison Pensa LLP share their unique perspective on what it takes to build and…
With dedication and smart strategies, you can transform a small business idea into a successful reality quickly
A growing number of researchers are taking a closer look at substances that were once dismissed outright
Relocating your business smoothly comes from detailed preparation and disciplined follow-through