The growing popularity of online betting has representatives of the Canadian gaming industry worried that casinos could lose out. (CBC)A trend towards betting on websites instead of going to casinos has the Canadian gaming industry wondering how to get a cut of the new online action.

Canadians now spend about $1 billion per year gambling online. But since privately owned betting websites are not legal in this country, most of the revenue goes to international companies, according to the Canadian Gaming Association.

"We as an industry and government and regulators have to come to grips and catch up and bring in a regulatory environment," said Paul Burns, a spokesman for the association, which is hosting the 14th Annual Canadian Gaming Summit in Calgary.

Gaming online is allowed in Canada if the site is operated by a provincial government lottery agency, Burns said. But so far only a few — including the B.C. and Atlantic lottery corporations — have offered web-based services.

But legalizing private gaming websites in Canada could entice children into gambling, according to David Hodgins, a gambling addiction expert at the University of Calgary.

"It's certainly something we have to be really cautious about. What we do know is the younger somebody begins to gamble the more likely they are to get into problems," he said.

'We as an industry and government and regulators have to come to grips and catch up'—Paul Burns, gaming industry spokesman

Burns acknowledged that developing a regulatory framework to address internet gambling — and get a share of the revenue flowing out of Canada — will be challenging.

But he said it is necessary in order to safeguard an industry that has become an important source of revenue for the provinces — especially in Alberta, where the government stands to make more money this year from gambling than from oilsands.

And an effort in the United States simply to ban online gaming has failed, according to Burns.

"They're finding it impossible to implement, impossible to enforce. So there are now bills in both houses in the United States looking at how they can regulate it," he said.

According to a poll presented by Ipsos Reid at the gaming summit, most Canadians are unaware that betting websites are not allowed to operate inside this country.

"A vast majority of Canadians already believe that internet gambling in Canada is legal and that it's already regulated by the government," said Paul Lauzon, a spokesman for the polling company.

All provinces are trying to develop workable solutions and legal online gambling based in Canada will be a reality within a couple of years, Burns predicted.