A panel of compliance veterans at SBC Summit Canada warned that a fragmented regulatory framework is leaving operators exposed
Provincial lottery corporations are not investing enough in anti-money laundering (AML), and Canada’s financial intelligence unit is taking notice. This was the assessment from Derek Ramm, Global Head of Advisory Services at Kinectify Advisors, as a panel of compliance experts discussed the issues facing Canada’s gaming industry at SBC Summit Canada 2026.
Canadian legislation passed in March means AML violations committed from that point forward carry fines up to 40 times higher than before – potentially reaching 3% of revenue.
For a provincial lottery corporation turning over $8bn annually, that is a $240m maximum exposure. “I don’t think we’re going to see the Fintrac fines stop,” said Ramm, referring to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac).
The panel – which also included Dave Foppert, VP and AML Officer at DraftKings, Steven Armstrong of FRL Compliance Solutions, Susan Bala, President and CEO of Advanced Compliance Technology, and Rebekah Jackson, Global Gaming Director at GBG – offered their views on why the iGaming industry in Canada finds itself in the position it is in.
SBC Canada: Operators caught between federal, provincial rules
Several panellists argued the key problem is many operators are squeezed between federal and provincial obligations that don’t align. Foppert said if a customer withdraws $8,000 in Toronto and $7,000 in Calgary on the same day, DraftKings can see the combined breach of the federal reporting threshold – but has no legal path to file directly with Fintrac, because each transaction falls below the provincial trigger and data cannot be shared across provinces.
“You feel like you’re in a no-win situation at times,” Foppert said. His preferred fix is to let operators report directly to Fintrac, a view supported by Armstrong and backed by Bala, who said a lack of clarity between federal and provincial authority is at the heart of the current issue.
“Everybody’s got authority and nobody’s got authority,” she said.
Ramm argued provincial lottery corporations are simply not prioritising AML spend. “When have you ever heard a government say, ‘We’re going to dedicate 1% of revenue to keeping criminals out of our gaming establishments?’” he asked.
Bala spoke of how Ontario generated $600m in tax revenue last year from licensed operators, none of which appears earmarked for financial crime prevention, while 75% of Canadian betting activity still flows through the illegal market.
The risk-based case
On player friction, the panelists argued that the blanked thresholds on gambling were completely ineffective; publicly-listed CEOs and 24-year-old baristas should not be held under the same risk threshold. Foppert said this approach diverts compliance resources away from true high-risk activity and pushes customers toward unregulated alternatives.
“The risk isn’t at onboarding,” Jackson said, “the risk is when the player’s on board, their activity changes,” she said, adding that a progressive risk-based approach tends to hold up better when audits come around.
Is the solution shared infrastructure?
The panel suggested shared infrastructure across Canada’s operators was the best long-term solution, and Bala called for real-time, cross-stakeholder data sharing – encompassing banks, payment providers, regulators and operators – with technology doing the heavy lifting.
Ramm noted Canada introduced 314(b)-style information-sharing provisions this year, but that the rules apply only to designated reporting entities, not operators directly.
Jackson pointed to GBG’s fraud consortium network as a working example of what shared infrastructure looks like in practice – pooling signals across 20,000 customers globally to identify fraud rings moving between operators in real time. “That,” said Foppert, “is the definition of shared infrastructure.”
