PointsBet accepts Ontario’s first iGaming suspension

• PointsBet Canada will serve a two-day suspension of its Ontario gaming site, down from the five days first proposed.
• The operator must also commission an AGCO-approved audit and fix any findings.
• No Ontario iGaming operator had previously been suspended as a regulatory penalty.

PointsBet Canada will serve a two-day suspension of its Ontario gaming site after settling with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) over alleged failures to detect and report suspicious bets on former NBA player Jontay Porter.

The settlement, announced by the AGCO on October 20, cuts the regulator’s proposed five-day penalty and ends PointsBet’s Licence Appeal Tribunal challenge before its scheduled hearing could proceed.

Last-minute deal

The tribunal had blocked out five days for the hearing, starting Monday, October 19. Instead, counsel for both sides spent the weekend and all Monday negotiating, according to Canadian Gaming Business.

When the tribunal reconvened on Tuesday morning, it announced that a settlement had been reached. PointsBet then filed a notice of withdrawal, abandoning the appeal it had launched in February.

An AGCO spokesperson said:

“The AGCO and PointsBet Canada have reached a settlement resolving the regulatory proceeding arising from the AGCO’s February 2026 Notice of Proposed Order.”

The two days have not yet been scheduled. The regulator said it will approve the dates on which PointsBet serves the suspension.

Strings attached

The two-day suspension is only part of the settlement. PointsBet must undertake an independent audit of its controls, using an auditor and methodology that the AGCO approves.

The operator has committed to addressing any findings. Its fixes will then be independently validated, according to the regulator.

The case had already made history in February. That five-day proposal was the first suspension the AGCO had sought against an Ontario iGaming operator since the market launched in April 2022.

By comparison, the AGCO fined Relax Gaming and Arrise Solutions C$40,000 each in May. In August, it ordered Betty to pay a C$120,000 penalty over underage gambling.

The Porter problem

The case goes back to early 2024, when insider betting allegations surfaced around Jontay Porter, then a two-way player for the Toronto Raptors.

The AGCO told every regulated sportsbook in the province to confirm whether it had offered bets on him. Each also had to say whether it had detected and reported anything suspicious.

After what the regulator called a significant delay, PointsBet answered that it had not offered such bets. That position held until October 2025, when a US Department of Justice indictment set out the wider scheme and the AGCO asked operators to reconfirm.

Eighteen months after its first reply, PointsBet acknowledged it had offered betting on Porter in the games in question. The AGCO said the operator’s wagering data showed indications of the suspicious betting at the heart of the scheme. Those wagers, it added, should have been caught and reported when they were placed.

The NBA banned Porter for life in April 2024. He later pleaded guilty to a US federal charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Not a clean sheet

PointsBet has put its original answer down to human error during a period of organizational change, rather than any intent to withhold information. It has also said it disclosed the correct data once it found the error.

When the operator announced its appeal in February, Scott Vanderwel, CEO at PointsBet Canada, said:

“We have a strong compliance record in Ontario and remain fully committed to the highest standards of integrity and player protection.”

The Porter case is not PointsBet’s first run-in with the AGCO. The regulator fined it C$30,000 in May 2022 for breaching advertising and inducement rules. A C$150,000 penalty followed in November 2023 for failures against Ontario’s responsible gambling standards.

Alberta on hold

PointsBet has operated in Ontario since 2022, and the province is the only market where it runs an online casino. The Australian group has been controlled by an Australian subsidiary of Japan’s MIXI since a 2025 takeover.

Its next Canadian move is Alberta. PointsBet’s June annual report guided to a launch there before the end of 2026. It is still not live, even though Alberta’s gray-market window closed this month.

Brooke Hilton, Head of Casino at PointsBet Canada, said at SBC Summit in Lisbon in September:

“[Alberta] has had a healthy grey market for the better part of the last two or three decades, so delaying another three months isn’t going to make or break you. We want to make sure we have the most competitive product available.”

Ontario’s other licensees now have a precedent: the AGCO will suspend an operator’s site over integrity reporting, not just issue a fine.

For PointsBet, the audit’s findings and the timing of its two days offline will both play out as it works towards an Alberta launch.