Members of the Boyd Interactive team recently made the short trip across town to attend SBC Summit Canada 2026, held in Toronto from 19 to 21 May. As a Toronto-based business, there is always something rewarding about attending a flagship industry event in our own home city, and this year’s edition gave us a valuable opportunity to connect with peers, partners, and colleagues from across the Canadian gaming ecosystem.
A more intimate gathering
SBC Summit Canada has established itself as the country’s dedicated gathering for the regulated gaming and betting market. Compared with some of the larger international trade shows on the industry calendar, the Canada summit is comparatively modest in scale — and in our experience, that is part of its appeal. The smaller footprint makes for a more intimate environment, one where conversations happen more naturally, schedules are a little less frantic, and there is genuine time to catch up with friends and longtime colleagues rather than simply rushing between back-to-back meetings.
The event brings together a focused cross-section of the Canadian market: operators, provincial crown corporations, First Nations gaming interests, land-based operators, affiliates, suppliers, regulators, and media, all with a shared stake in where the country’s industry is heading. This year’s summit was co-hosted alongside the Canada Fintech Symposium, broadening the conversation to the payments and financial technology that increasingly underpin the sector.
Alberta was the talk of the town
If there was a single theme that ran through the hallways and meeting rooms this year, it was Alberta. The province’s regulated online gambling market is set to open to private operators on 13 July 2026 — less than two months after the summit closed — and the anticipation around it was unmistakable.
Alberta will become the second Canadian province after Ontario to license private operators under a formal regulatory framework, a development that carries weight not only within Canada but on a North American scale. Many of the attendees we spoke with were watching the launch closely, and a recurring question surfaced in conversation after conversation: if Alberta’s market opens successfully, will it encourage other provinces to follow suit? No one claimed to have a definitive answer, but the sense of momentum was clear, and it lent this year’s event an additional charge of energy.
Joining the conversation on omnichannel
We were also pleased to take part in the conference programme itself. Our VP of Product, Jussi Halme, joined the panel “Omnichannel Opportunities: Land-Based and Lottery Domination on the Horizon?” as part of the event’s Land-Based and Lottery track. The session examined how the boundaries between retail, online, and mobile experiences are continuing to blur, and what it will take to build a genuinely connected ecosystem across physical and digital channels.
Among the points Jussi raised was the distinction between multichannel operations, where land-based and online run alongside one another in effective silos, and true omnichannel, where the two are integrated through a shared rewards account and a single customer view. He suggested that the journey begins less with technology than with organizational commitment — deciding that online is additive to the business rather than a threat — and pointed to the loyalty database as the connective tissue between both environments. He also cautioned that land-based incumbents that do not embrace omnichannel risk gradual revenue erosion, as their customers begin engaging with other brands online.
Looking ahead
Events like SBC Summit Canada are a reminder of how quickly the Canadian market is maturing, and of the value of coming together as an industry to compare notes on where it is heading. With Alberta’s launch on the near horizon and conversations around omnichannel, compliance, and player experience as active as ever, there is plenty to build toward.
We would like to thank SBC for hosting another well-run event in our home city, and the many partners and colleagues who took the time to connect with our team over the three days. We look forward to seeing where the next twelve months take the market — and to being part of the conversation.