GGPoker Ontario is enjoying one of its strongest stretches yet, with tournament traffic approaching record levels. As reported by Poker Industry PRO earlier today, the operator has experienced a sharp rise in MTT activity over the past two weeks.
There are a couple of reasons driving the increase. First, the operator is currently running the biggest tournament festival ever held in the province. The GG Ontario Festival has returned for its fourth edition, this time carrying a hefty C$8 million guarantee.
At the same time, the room is also benefiting from the temporary absence of PokerStars Ontario, which shut down ahead of its transition to PokerStars on FanDuel Ontario, a platform that has still not launched. With one of the market’s biggest operators offline, Ontario online poker players have been forced to look elsewhere, and rival rooms are beginning to absorb that displaced traffic.
Among them, GGPoker Ontario appears to be gaining the most ground, according to data tracked by Sharkscope Analytics and available to PRO subscribers through the new PRO DB platform. Its PRO Score, a combined measure of cash game and tournament activity, reached 381 on Wednesday, May 13, marking the second-highest figure in the market’s history. The only higher mark remains the all-time peak of 406 recorded in January 2026.
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Tournament numbers, in particular, have surged. The room’s 30-day moving average for daily MTT entries now sits at a record 381. Sunday, May 10, became its third-biggest tournament day ever, generating 20,866 MTT entries. May 3 and May 4 from the previous week also rank among the top five busiest tournament days in the site’s history.
The timing has worked out especially well for GGPoker. Throughout May, it is hosting the annual GG Ontario Festival, and the absence of its largest competitor has only increased the appeal of the series for players searching for a new platform.
Record-Breaking GG Ontario Festival Edition
This year’s edition comes with C$8 million in guaranteed prize money, setting a new benchmark for the Ontario market and surpassing last year’s series by C$2 million. Events are divided into three buy-in tiers aimed at recreational and high-volume players alike, with buy-ins ranging from $3 to $1,500.
It is not only GGPoker Ontario’s largest series to date, but also the biggest online poker festival ever staged in the province. It eclipses last year’s WSOP Online Bracelet Series, which featured C$7 million in guarantees.
The opening weekend featured the GGMasters Grand Opening, a C$150 buy-in event with a C$60,000 guarantee. Last weekend was followed by the C$5 Ontario Mini MILLION$, which carried a C$20,000 guarantee, along with its Mystery Bounty companion event, a C$5.25 tournament offering a C$30,000 guarantee.
The upcoming weekend, on Sunday, May 17, brings another major lineup with three key events on the schedule. These include the C$150 GGMasters Ontario Festival, featuring a C$50,000 guarantee, alongside the C$50 Ontario MILLION$, which promises C$100,000, and the C$52.50 Mystery Million$, also guaranteed at C$100,000 and set to run as a phased event.
Later in the month, attention shifts toward larger mid- and high-stakes tournaments, with several events offering guarantees exceeding C$100,000.
Post-PokerStars Market Gap
Other Ontario operators are also seeing modest gains, though none on the same scale. 888poker Ontario, a room with limited cash game traffic but still competitive tournament numbers, recently climbed to a two-month high PRO Score of 114. Meanwhile, BetMGM Poker Ontario, which saw traffic decline in April, has since recovered much of that lost activity and recently posted a one-month high.
Even so, market-wide data available through PRO indicates that only a portion of former PokerStars players have migrated to competing sites. The Ontario poker regulated market’s overall PRO Score dropped to 430 last week, one of the lowest weekly readings seen in the past year. Traffic for the current week so far stands at 389.
That suggests a large number of former PokerStars customers have yet to settle on a replacement platform. It also points to a potential opportunity for FanDuel Poker to win those players back once the new site finally launches. At the same time, it leaves significant room for existing operators to continue expanding their share of the market if they can successfully retain new sign-ups.
How long PokerStars x FanDuel will remain offline in Ontario remains unclear. When the companies completed a similar migration in the US, the transition happened on the same day. That rollout was arguably more complicated, involving three states merging into a new shared-liquidity network on software that had never before been deployed in North America.
Given that successful launch, many expected the Ontario migration to proceed smoothly as well. So far, that has not happened. Whether the delay stems from technical complications or simply reflects the intended rollout schedule has not been explained publicly.
For now, PokerStars/FanDuel Poker Ontario has provided a confirmed launch date for the new platform. But the longer the platform stays offline, the more difficult it may become to reclaim the market share it previously held.
