Mobile casino operator Betty has gone live in the UK after being granted a Gambling Commission licence in Q1 2026.
The UK entry marks the first step beyond Canada for the operator that has long held ambitions to push its product into more global markets.
Former Oakvale Capital senior associate and 15 Marketing Ltd managing director Adele Baker will lead the expansion as CEO of Betty UK.
Baker joined the slots-focused operator in early 2026 and Justin Park, Betty co-founder and group CEO, has expressed his confidence in her leadership on the day of the launch.
Park posted: “She has set the bar extremely high for talent and has an uncanny understanding of the core question: when do you just copy what has worked in Ontario and when do you innovate?”
Expansion plans
As sweepstakes-style casinos faced intensifying legal headwinds across North America, Betty has sharpened its focus on real-money gaming and international expansion.
Ontario is the company’s home market, and the operator has been consistently scaling up its presence there, having reported net revenue of $81.2m in Q1 2026.
This marked a 155% increase year-on-year and a record quarterly performance. Alongside its impressive growth in Canada, the brand’s broader next steps have been sketched out for some time.
On top of furthering its UK expansion plans, Betty was successful in obtaining a licence from the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) in Q1, and the company plans to go live in Alberta on 13 July when the newly regulated market launches.
Why the UK now?
Despite the enthusiasm for Alberta and the success in Ontario, the size of the UK online market holds great appeal for Park.
At the end of Q2 2025, Park made explicit his desire to expand the company internationally, creating independently operating teams for different markets around the world.
He noted at the time that: “The United Kingdom, a huge market ripe for disruption, is first on our list.”
Appearing on a panel at the NEXT Summit: New York, Park elaborated on his desire to demonstrate the “portability” of the offering: “Can we prove this model works somewhere else?”
In this way, the UK will function as a proving ground for both the product and the business model, which means that each franchise is going to have its own board, raise capital independently, and be granted freedom to acquire local businesses.
And it will certainly be a challenging proving ground – remote gaming and betting duties were hiked up significantly in the fiscal reforms announced in the government’s autumn budget.
With those reforms coming into effect in Spring 2026, it is a turbulent and challenging period in which to be entering the UK market, though perhaps Park’s emphasis on ‘disruption’ suggests a feeling that the uncertainty also presents opportunity.
The UK team
Exemplifying that approach, Park has bestowed much of the credit on the new Betty UK team for the launch, which he says is made up of “Betty-natives and newcomers.”
On that count, Baker would be considered one of those newcomers, though she brings plenty of experience having led UK-licensed operator and Super Group subsidiary Jumpman Gaming over the past seven years.
One of the ‘Betty-natives’ mentioned is Betty UK’s founding CTO, Zhasmina Draganova, who joined the company in Summer 2022 and has also garnered praise from Park.
Park said she “went absolute beast mode to make this launch possible”.
Vertical growth
The ongoing developments at Betty are vertical as well as geographical and the company launched its mobile bingo product in Q1 2026.
Speaking in New York, Park referenced Disneyland as he explained his desire to transition successful online casino products into the land-based market.
“The thing that came first was the IP, the movies, the magic was on screen. Then they created the physical thing afterwards. The question we’re asking is what would happen if you start with an innovative casino product online like ours, and then translated it into land-based?”
In Ontario, Betty has made tentative steps in this direction having acquired the Kirkland Lake Bingo Hall in March 2026 – the hall is staying open under the same name with all jobs preserved.
The purchase has allowed the operator to access Ontario’s regulated charitable bingo framework and last week, Betty was able to present a $2m charitable funding donation to organisations across Northern Ontario.
It’s uncertain how any transition of this sort would play out in the UK, and the first steps will likely focus on customer acquisition to Betty’s online channels.
But with the growth of Betty’s iBingo product in mind, the abolition of bingo duty in autumn budget may have made the jurisdiction an even more attractive proposition to Park.