If you live in Ontario

Ontario is the one province with its own regulated private online casino market. It opened on 4 April 2022. Since then, any operator that wants to serve Ontario residents has to register with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and sign an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario (iGO), the agency that runs the market. Operators without that registration are not allowed to advertise to people in Ontario, and sites like ours are not supposed to promote them to Ontario residents either.

Where that leaves this site

None of the casinos we review are registered with iGaming Ontario. Not one. They hold Curacao or Anjouan licences, or in a couple of cases we could not find a licence number at all, and they serve Canada from outside it. That is legal for them to do in most provinces, in the sense that no Canadian law stops you from playing at an offshore site. In Ontario it is different: the regulated market exists precisely so that residents play at registered sites, and the unregistered ones are not meant to be reaching you.

So we geo-block. If our server thinks you are in Ontario, the outbound casino links on this site do not work. You will still be able to read the reviews and the guides, because information is not advertising, but the "visit" buttons go nowhere. If you are reading this because a button did nothing, that is why.

What you should look at instead

iGaming Ontario publishes the list of registered operators on igamingontario.ca. Every site on that list has passed AGCO's standards on game fairness, responsible gambling tools, advertising and player funds. A few practical differences you will notice at a registered site compared to the ones we review:

• Deposits and balances are in Canadian dollars by default, and Interac is standard rather than a lucky find.
• There are no inducements in advertising. You will not see "up to C$5,800" on a billboard, because AGCO's standards restrict public bonus advertising. Offers exist, but you find them after you sign up.
• Deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion are mandatory and work across the whole market through a central scheme, not one site at a time.
• Disputes go to a Canadian regulator, not an e-mail address on a Caribbean island.

Why we do not just add Ontario sites

Because promoting registered operators to Ontario residents is itself a regulated activity. Affiliates working with iGO operators have to follow the same advertising standards, and a site that also reviews unregistered casinos is not a good fit for that. We would rather be clear about what we are than pretend. This site covers offshore casinos for the rest of Canada. For Ontario, the regulator's list is a better guide than we are.

If you are in Ontario and still want to play offshore

We are not going to pretend it is impossible. We are also not going to help. The sites we review are not supposed to be taking you, and if something goes wrong there, you will find that an unregistered operator does not answer to anyone you can reach. Registered sites are not perfect, but they are accountable, and in a dispute that is the whole difference.

Help in Ontario

ConnexOntario runs a free, confidential helpline for problem gambling, 24 hours a day, at 1-866-531-2600. Our responsible gambling page has the numbers for the other provinces and the signs to watch for.

Other provinces

Outside Ontario the picture is different and we cover it province by province: Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada.