On Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine whether Ontario and Alberta’s regulated poker markets are allowed to share player pools with international operators like PokerStars and GGPoker. No ruling will come that day, but the arguments made by both sides will shape the direction of Canadian online poker for years, and almost no one in the poker media is talking about it.
The stakes only grow when paired with what happens two days earlier: Quebec’s Oct. 5 provincial election, where the two front-running parties have each pledged to end Loto-Québec’s online gaming monopoly and license private operators. Between a Supreme Court decision on cross-border liquidity and a possible third province joining the fold, Canada could be on the verge of a domestic poker pool approaching 30 million players, or locked into its current fractured setup indefinitely.
