For Canadians, gambling is a very common and popular way of entertainment. In Canada, the laws regarding real money betting and gambling are not very clear. In this page we will try to give you a little more background on this subject, and help you understand whats allowed, what isn’t, and what you as a player should know about it.
Of course this page is updated and we will keep it up to date with all new changes that might happen.
Canadian Laws in General
At the 1970s there has been legislation that gave the individual provinces the option to license and regulate gambling on their own. Before this happened legislation was very difficult toward gambling of all forms for many years.
What happened next was that all over the country, separated by each province, many land based casinos began to operate, in addition to lotteries that are operating ever since, and also a few sports betting outlets which were and still are operating across Canada.
Online Gambling Legality in Canada – For Sites
Online gambling in Canada is regulated in the following way – if an online gambling site is regulated and approved by the Canadian government, it can host Canadian players.
The problem that we may face here is that it doesn’t specify who cant host Canadian players. This doesn’t really say that an online casino that operates in a different state, and is regulated by it, cant host Canadian players.
This is the gray area hasn’t been fully regulated, and for many years doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s priority to address this subject.
Therefor many online gambling sites that are fully regulated still have a possibility to host Canadian players.
Online Gambling Legality in Canada – For Players
As for Canadian players, who want to gamble online, there aren’t any laws that specifically say that online gambling is allowed, or not. Which makes it easier for us.
As much as we know about, there hasn’t been any cases of Canadian citizens being fined or gotten into any other kind of trouble for playing and gambling online.
Something that can help make sense on why exactly no one has or can be harmed in any way from playing and gambling online , is the simple fact that in order to prevent Canadian citizens from playing, the Canadian government most first make more strict rules. Then They need to prosecute the online gambling sites and stop them from operating. Only then at last, issue fines or whatever these new laws will say.
By that point every online gambler in Canada would know about this and decide on his own how to act, but until then, you may gamble away.