By Stan Ashbee
This week, the Government of Alberta launched its iGaming initiative with nearly two dozen sites now operating in the province, but with it comes a warning from the Better Business Bureau that fake gaming ads continue to plague the industry.
Some of the ads have reportedly featured sports celebrities, including NHL hockey star Connor McDavid.
A report found that from 2022 to mid-2025, the BBB received more than 10,000 complaints related to online gambling and gaming with many of the complaints related to fake ads found online.
Scammers are the ultimate opportunists and the launch of legal online gambling in the province provides scammers an opportunity to try and confuse consumers and have them go to unregulated gambling sites or to straight ahead fake sites, the BBB noted.
The estimated size of the online gambling and gaming industry is $103 billion, according to Researchandmarkets.com, and the estimate of the size of the illegal online gambling market is $402 billion, according to the American Gaming Association.
Wes Lafortune from the BBB Serving Alberta and East Kootenay said the alert has been issued to make people aware the fake ads exist. “These often pop up in social media feeds. You’ll see an ad for a casino, and often it’s either an illegal site operating overseas or an actual fake fraud site.”
According to Lafortune, people should not click on the links associated with these ads and verify it’s a legitimate gaming site.
You can find a list of official legal and regulated operators in the province online at abigaming.ca.
Lafortune noted no matter what kind of business you’re doing online, “verify who you’re dealing with.”
One tip is to look closely at website addresses for the website protocol “https.”
“The ‘s’ part means secure. That’s not 100 per cent foolproof. It certainly goes a long way to ensure it’s a secure website,” added Lafortune.
Online fraud is very prevalent in Canada, Lafortune explained. “It’s very important for consumers to learn how to spot fakes and always verify the information. Look for grammatical and spelling errors on websites. Deal with operators in any venue you know and trust.”
“When you’re making an online purchase, use a credit card, so you can dispute it if you need to at a later point with your bank,” Lafortune said.
