Is Sports Betting Legal in Prince Edward Island?
The question on most people's minds before we can go any further is, is sports betting legal in Prince Edward Island? Can bettors in P.E.I. legally wager without the concern of crossing any legal boundaries?
The answer to this question is a yes, but It doesn’t come without caveats. The legal situation in the province is quite complicated, as it is largely defined by what is going on across Canada. To fully understand whether you can legally use Prince Edward Island betting sites, you need to understand what the rules are in Canada and the history of these rules.
For essentially as long as internet gambling has existed, it has been in something of a legal gray area in Canada. The government didn’t federally make gambling illegal, but they did have a rule in place that single-game betting operators were not allowed to run their businesses in Canada.

Single-game betting is the act of wagering on a single sporting event. So, there were no operators allowed in Canada that had this type of betting. Instead, if gamblers wanted to wager with a government-approved operator, they could only bet on parlays.
Parlay betting is when bettors tie multiple bets into one. It is a form of gambling that can have massive payouts. However, it is way more risky than single-game betting, so having this be the only government-supported option puts gamblers in an unfortunate position.
However, there were workarounds for P.E.I. residents and Canadians. There were some exceptions to the government’s rule. For starters, Canadians could use sports betting sites that were licensed and regulated outside the province, like Bet365, Betway, Bodog, and more. These operators were licensed in outside jurisdictions where governments allowed sports betting companies on their soil.
The other option was to use operators like Sports Interaction, who were licensed in Indigenous jurisdictions in Canada. They didn’t have to adhere to the government’s rules, so operators like Sports Interaction were allowed to serve Canadian markets.
The state of affairs was that bettors could use operators that weren’t licensed in their jurisdiction without any fear of repercussions from the government. But it wasn’t explicitly endorsed by the government, so it was something of a confusing legal gray area. While this system was not ideal, thanks to how confusing it was, it was the only one for decades.
In 2020, Bill C-218 was introduced, and in 2021, it was passed. So what is Bill C-218, and why does it matter?
Bill C-218 was a bill that amended the Canadian Criminal Code. Originally, the code had rules that federally banned single-game wagers. This bill removed that from the code, giving provinces the freedom to make their own decision on betting.
Instead of a catch-all rule, provinces could run their own gambling industries and regulate operators within the province if they chose to.
In Prince Edward Island, we already have seen the fruits of this change in action. The Atlantic Lottery Corporation, which serves the Maritime provinces, has upgraded Proline Stadium to feature single-game betting. This provincially-run operator now allows bettors to place wagers on a single event or parlay their bets.
While this is incredibly exciting, it is not as far as the changes in Ontario have gone. Ontario has fully implemented sports betting into the provincial regulations. They now have a regulatory body that oversees multiple operators in the province. New sportsbooks like FanDuel, BetMGM, and DraftKings have now arrived. These betting sites are not legal in Prince Edward Island.
Predicting whether Prince Edward Island will expand its industry is difficult. Right now, the Maritime provinces seem content to make the same decisions together. They rely on a single provincially-run operator rather than fully opening up their industry. Still, it is a step in the right direction, and offshore betting sites remain available.