GME3: ON a Roll, Schooled on Privacy & No-Opoly

In this week’s GME3, Ontario’s regulated iGaming market hit another new milestone in the month of October, Ontario and Alberta privacy commissioners announce that the PowerSchool data breach revealed major privacy shortcomings from school boards, and a U.S. federal judge has handed Meta a major legal victory in an ongoing antitrust case. Read the full stories below!

Gambling

ON a Roll

Ontario’s regulated iGaming market hit a new milestone in October, with total wagers surpassing $9.2 billion across 50 licensed operators. That was an 8% increase over September’s previous record of $8.5 billion and 24% higher than October 2024. Active player accounts also climbed to an all-time high of nearly 1.3 million, up 9% month-over-month. Non-adjusted gross gaming revenue reached a record $367.7 million, 38% above last year, with each active account generating an average of $286 in revenue for online casinos and sportsbooks.

Online casinos continued to dominate, accounting for about 85% of total wagering. Casino handle hit $7.9 billion, up 26% year-over-year, while casino non-adjusted gross gaming revenue rose 43% to $303.8 million, another record. Sports betting delivered a record $1.2 billion in handle, boosted by the Toronto Blue Jays’ World Series run and the return of the NHL and NBA. However, operator revenue lagged the surge in betting activity: sportsbooks earned just over $58 million, up from last year and from September’s low, but still below several earlier 2025 months.

Peer-to-peer poker remained a small piece of the market, with $131 million in handle (1.4% of total) and $5.6 million in revenue. That segment could grow in the future following an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that opens the door to international liquidity sharing for poker and DFS, although any implementation may take years. iGO’s figures continue to exclude activity on the government-run OLG platform.

Media

Schooled on Privacy

Ontario and Alberta’s privacy commissioners say school boards were ill-prepared for the massive PowerSchool data breach that compromised sensitive information for about 5.2 million Canadians, including roughly 3.86 million in Ontario and more than 700,000 in Alberta. Their coordinated investigations found that many school boards and educational bodies had significant gaps in their contracts, security practices, and breach response planning when using PowerSchool’s systems to store student and staff data.

Both commissioners concluded that “some or all” of the affected bodies failed to include adequate privacy and security provisions in their agreements with PowerSchool to meet public sector privacy laws. They also lacked effective oversight of the company’s technical safeguards, including proper monitoring and multi-factor authentication, and did not have sufficiently robust breach response plans. In Alberta, Commissioner Diane McLeod said deficiencies in PowerSchool’s own security contributed to the breach, while Ontario’s Patricia Kosseim highlighted how an “always on” remote access feature left a persistent open door that threat actors exploited.

The reports note that dozens of school boards across eight provinces and one territory were affected after somebody gained access to PowerSchool’s student information system and support portal using compromised credentials, exfiltrating personal data. An American student has since been sentenced to four years in prison for cyber extortion tied to the incident.

The commissioners issued a series of recommendations, urging school boards to review and renegotiate contracts with PowerSchool, limit remote access to an as-needed basis, strengthen policies and breach protocols, and calling on provincial governments to support boards with expertise and bargaining power when dealing with education technology providers.

Entertainment

No-Opoly

A U.S. federal judge has handed Meta a major legal victory, rejecting an antitrust case that could have forced the company to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) failed to prove that Meta currently holds monopoly power in social networking, even if it may have enjoyed such power in the past. The decision contrasts sharply with recent rulings against Google, which was found to be an illegal monopoly in search and online advertising.

The FTC argued that Meta followed Mark Zuckerberg’s old maxim that it is “better to buy than compete,” systematically acquiring potential rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp to neutralize competitive threats and enacting policies that hindered smaller rivals. Prosecutors relied heavily on decade-old internal emails, but Boasberg emphasized that the case turned on present-day market power and “current or imminent” violations, not past conduct that regulators had previously approved.

Boasberg noted that the social media landscape has changed dramatically since the FTC first sued in 2020, with TikTok now “center stage” as Meta’s fiercest rival and the boundaries between social networking and social media increasingly blurred. Meta welcomed the ruling, saying it confirms the company faces “fierce competition.”

Analysts stressed that while this is a significant win, Meta’s regulatory challenges are far from over, with major U.S. trials on social media and children’s mental health looming next year. Investors appeared largely unfazed, as Meta’s share price moved only slightly in line with broader market trends.