The Next Generation of Casino Entertainment: Interview with Alexander Sosnovski on Technology, Trends and Ontario’s Gaming Future
Few people in this industry have worked as many sides of it as Alexander Sosnovski. Eleven years in land based operations at the Casino de Montréal, supervising gaming tables for the Government of Québec, including the high limit room. A mandate from Groupe Partouche to deliver its first regulated online casino in Switzerland, taking Pasino.ch from concept to launch under ESBK supervision. Then Manila, as COO and CMO for a PAGCOR licensed operator, managing over 150 staff across marketing, operations and affiliates.
Alexander now works as an industry expert and contributor at Casino.ca, where he covers regulation, operator standards and player protection for a Canadian audience. With Ontario’s market four years old, we asked for his assessment.
Ontario at four years. What is your professional read on it?
Stronger than most European observers predicted. The expectation in 2021 was that an open market with many operators would leak badly, and that much of the play would stay offshore regardless.
The figure that settles the argument is channelisation, not turnover. An Ipsos study conducted for the provincial regulator and published this May found 91.1% of Ontarians who gamble online were playing on regulated sites, up from 83.7% a year earlier. Before April 2022 the province’s own estimate was that around 70% of activity sat offshore. Reversing that ratio inside four years is a substantial regulatory achievement.
The commercial performance follows. The last full fiscal year recorded 82.7 billion dollars in wagers and 3.2 billion in gaming revenue across 49 operators. Revenue tells you the market is large. Channelisation tells you the framework is credible.
You built a regulated operation from nothing in Switzerland. How do the two models compare?
They are opposite approaches to the same objective.
In Switzerland the online licence is attached to a land based casino, in our case Casino du Lac Meyrin, and the regulator examines everything before you go live. My mandate covered the full build: product prototypes for desktop, tablet and mobile, platform and payment integrations, CRM and affiliate systems, a 24/7 support operation, and a security programme that achieved ISO 27001 certification. Fifteen people, a budget above ten million euros, much of it spent on compliance and infrastructure rather than acquisition.
Ontario placed the burden on standards rather than on scarcity and admitted many operators at once. The Swiss model protects the incumbent. The Ontario model gives the player choice and obliges brands to compete on product quality. Judged on what is available to a player after four years, Ontario is ahead.
Please tell us about your current work at Casino.ca.
It is the assessment side of the same subject. Casino.ca reviews the regulated Canadian market using a seven step rating system, and the writers involved register and play at the sites they cover rather than relying on press material. Responsible gambling provision is part of the score, not an afterthought at the bottom of the page, which matters more than readers might assume.
My own contribution is regulatory and operational. Which licences carry real obligations. How long a withdrawal genuinely takes once verification is complete. Whether bonus terms are written to be understood or to be survived. Having built and run these operations, I know where the shortcuts are, because at various points I was the person deciding whether to take them.
So how should a player in Ontario choose between eighty licensed sites?
Verify the registration first. Every legal site displays its status with the regulator, and a site that makes that hard to find has answered the question for you.
After that, disregard the marketing and examine three things: how quickly withdrawals actually clear, what the wagering requirement on a bonus is in plain figures, and whether support resolves a real question outside business hours.
Very few players will do that across eighty operators, which is the argument for a review platform. Casino.ca publishes carefully selected online casinos in Ontario with licence verification and payout testing already completed, alongside the provincial context, so a player can build a shortlist of three and then confirm those three personally.
How has the product changed since 2022?
Substantially. Early entrants largely brought a European product into a Canadian market. That has been corrected, and payments led the way, because Canadian players will move to a competitor over a withdrawal that takes four days.
The more interesting development is live dealer. In land based operations the value of a table is the dealer and the pace of the game. First generation online casino discarded that and left the player with a button. Live studios recovered it, and production standards now resemble broadcast television rather than the early streaming setups. Instant and crash style titles have also taken genuine share, because they suit short sessions on a phone.
Where has Ontario been strongest on player protection?
Two measures stand out, and the first cost the industry money.
In February 2024 the province prohibited athletes and most celebrities in gaming advertising. Having run marketing organisations at scale, I know precisely what a brand ambassador contributes to registrations. Removing that tool creates a measurable gap in an acquisition plan, and Ontario proceeded anyway because the priority was limiting appeal to minors. That was the correct decision.
The second is BetGuard, introduced in May 2026. A player completes one process and is excluded from every licensed site in the province, for a period from six months to five years, with marketing communications stopped at the same time. Previously that required contacting each operator separately. In a land based room, trained staff observe a change in behaviour directly. Online they cannot, so the system has to do it, and centralised exclusion is the strongest version deployed in Canada so far.
What should operators be preparing for?
Consolidation, first. Alberta opened in July 2026, which divides resources across two frameworks and two sets of standards. I expect fewer brands in three years rather than more, and the survivors will be those with a differentiated product rather than a larger welcome offer.
Second, pooled liquidity. The Ontario Court of Appeal opened the door to international player pooling in late 2025, and the matter is now before the Supreme Court of Canada, so no one should commit a business plan to it yet. If it stands, online poker in this province changes fundamentally.
Third, and this is where I would invest, applying behavioural modelling to player safety rather than only to revenue. Operators already predict player behaviour in order to market to it, and the same models identify escalating deposits and loss chasing. Regulators will require this in time, and whoever implements it early will be in a better position.
One piece of advice for players?
Set the budget and the finishing time before you open the application, and treat the money as the cost of the evening rather than an investment. If the purpose becomes recovering a loss, the entertainment has already ended. Every regulated site in Ontario provides tools to stop, and they are more reliable than willpower.
Online gambling in Ontario is restricted to players 19 and over. If gambling stops being fun, free and confidential support is available from ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600, 24 hours a day.
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