PointsBet Canada will shut its Ontario gaming site for two days under a settlement with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), announced on 20 October 2026. The AGCO had proposed five days in February over bets on former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter that PointsBet did not detect or report. The dates of the suspension have not been set.
What the AGCO alleged
In its Notice of Proposed Order of 12 February 2026, the AGCO alleged a “systemic failure” by PointsBet to monitor, detect, document and report suspicious betting tied to the 2024 Porter bet-rigging scheme. When the allegations first surfaced in early 2024, the regulator asked all Ontario sportsbooks whether they had offered bets on Porter. PointsBet, after what the AGCO called significant delay, said it had not.
After a US Department of Justice indictment was made public in October 2025, the AGCO asked operators again. Eighteen months after its first answer, PointsBet said it had in fact offered betting on Porter in those games. The AGCO says its review of PointsBet’s wagering data confirmed the suspicious betting at the centre of the scheme, and that those wagers should have been caught and reported at the time.
What the settlement says
Under the terms the AGCO published, PointsBet accepts a two-day suspension of its Ontario site. It will also commission an independent audit, with an auditor and method approved by the AGCO, and fix whatever the audit finds; that remediation will be independently validated. The AGCO says the settlement concludes the proceeding.
According to Canadian Gaming Business, PointsBet had appealed the February notice to the Licence Appeal Tribunal, where a five-day hearing was due to start on 19 October. The two sides settled instead and PointsBet filed a notice of withdrawal. The outlet reports that this is the first time the AGCO has temporarily shut down an igaming operator as a penalty for a regulatory breach, and that the AGCO will approve the suspension dates. PointsBet has called the original sanction disproportionate and blamed human error during an organisational transition.
Key facts
Regulator: Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.
Operator: PointsBet Canada.
Original proposal: five-day suspension of its igaming registration, Notice of Proposed Order of 12 February 2026.
Settlement: two-day suspension of the Ontario site plus an AGCO-approved independent audit with independently validated remediation, announced 20 October 2026.
Dates: not yet set.
Earlier AGCO penalties: May 2022 (advertising and inducements) and November 2023 (responsible gambling standards).
Why it matters for GambleFi
The AGCO treats licensed operators as the first line of defence for sports integrity: they are expected to spot unusual betting and report it at once. This case shows the regulator will take a site offline when that reporting fails. Crypto sportsbooks that are not registered in Ontario, including platforms behind an iGaming token (also called a GambleFi token), sit outside that system, so a suspension like this one is not a lever the AGCO can pull on them; our SX Bet profile covers one onchain betting exchange. The same question about who watches sports bets runs through the US fight over sports event contracts, covered in our report on Polymarket US suing Ohio. For another recent settlement, see the UKGC’s £900,000 deal with L & L Europe, and the GambleFi FAQ for the basics. This is a news report, not legal or gambling advice.