Is Online Gambling Legal in Canada?
Online gambling is very much legal in Canada, approved by the federal government and controlled at the provincial level, much in the same way it is south of the border.
Each province has one online gambling site which is operated by the provincial government, such as Alberta’s Play Alberta. Only residents of the associated province are allowed to legally play at these online casinos, but Canadian gamblers can also access a rich marketplace of offshore gambling sites. Canadian gambling laws state that it is illegal for privately owned online casinos to operate in the country, but Canadian players are able to log onto these offshore sites and play at their favourite casinos from around the world.
The laws are, however, starting to change. In 2021, the C-218 amendments to the Criminal Code Canadian law allowed single-game sports betting, which was previously only available as a parlay through provincial lotteries. The Ontario government launched its legal and regulated online gambling market in April 2022, meaning that an influx of new Canadian gambling sites will soon be available to play in the province. This first-of-its-kind legislation should be seen as the formal legalization of privately owned casino operators in Canada.
There are also regulatory bodies like the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which regulates and licenses online gambling sites hosted in the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec. In order to receive a license, a gambling site must be hosted on Mohawk Internet Technologies servers located in the territory.
Both online and retail gambling is legal in the following jurisdictions:
- Alberta – online/retail
- British Columbia – online/retail
- Manitoba – online/retail
- Nova Scotia – online/retail
- New Brunswick – online/retail
- Newfoundland and Labrador – online/retail
- Ontario – online/retail
- Prince Edward Island – online/retail
- Quebec – online/retail
The remaining four jurisdictions only permit retail gambling:
- Northwest Territories – retail only
- Nunavut – retail only
- Saskatchewan – retail only
- Yukon – retail only
Of course, offshore sites remain an option in all jurisdictions.
At BestOnlineCasinos.ca, we’ll never encourage punters to place bets at unlicensed or illegal casinos. Our aim is to streamline your search for the best Canadian gambling sites by providing all the relevant information to enable our users to make balanced decisions. So if you’ve found it on BestOnlineCasinos, you know it’s a site you can trust.