Betty fined C$120,000 in Ontario after underage accounts went undetected for two years

Betty Gaming has been hit with a C$120,000 penalty from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario after 23 underage individuals created accounts on its platform. Nine of those account holders went on to deposit funds and gamble.

The regulator identified the compliance failure in November 2025 and determined that the accounts had remained undetected for two years. The AGCO issued the fine for two separate violations: failing to prevent underage account creation and failing to validate player information before accounts were created.

All of the individuals were under 19, the legal age for online gambling in Ontario. Fourteen of the underage account holders did not deposit funds, though it remains unclear whether that was due to system safeguards or personal choice.

Dr Karin Schnarr, CEO and registrar of the AGCO, said: "The legal age requirement is one of the most basic and important safeguards in Ontario's regulated gaming market."

She added: "Young people must not be able to create accounts, deposit money, or gamble online. Registered operators are responsible for making sure their systems work before those systems go live. When those responsibilities are not met, we will take action to protect young people and uphold confidence in Ontario's regulated market."

A spokesperson for the AGCO explained that the penalty sum reflected the nature of the contravention and the importance of the safeguards involved.

Betty has the right to appeal the order within 15 days to the licence appeal tribunal. Neither the company nor the regulator has confirmed whether it intends to do so.

The fine comes as Betty pushes into international markets. The operator launched in the UK in June 2026, but early results have been challenging. Revenue in the first month was £84,836 against a marketing spend of £49,286, yielding a gross profit of £23,097.

Betty UK CEO Adele Baker has acknowledged operational gaps. Group CEO Justin Park remains confident, describing the UK venture as "some flavour of success" and adding, "It's really just a question of scale."

For context, Betty generated C$8.4m in profit in Canada in Q2. Ontario remains its core market, and the compliance failure there carries direct financial and reputational cost at a time when the company is trying to prove its systems work across multiple jurisdictions.

Malta-licensed operators should take note. Age verification failures attract escalating penalties in regulated markets, and the AGCO has shown it is willing to enforce standards retroactively. A two-year blind spot is the kind of systemic gap that regulators in Europe and North America are increasingly unwilling to tolerate.