Although gambling is legal across the entirety of Canada, it is regulated slightly differently depending on what province or territory you are in. Generally speaking, the legal age for gambling will correspond to the drinking age in that territory. You must be 19 years old to enter a casino everywhere in Canada except Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta, where you must be at least 18.
It is important to remember that this restriction will also apply to any restaurants associated with the casino, so make sure that you check the age restrictions before entering.
With so many online casinos out there these days, finding a decent online casino can be a lot more difficult than you might initially have thought.
A few things you can look out for that are immediate signs that your casino of choice is trustworthy:
✅ whether it is licensed and regulated or not. In all major countries around the world, casinos will be required to have a valid licence issued by a regulator in order to offer their services to clients. As such, it’s incredibly important to check that its licence is valid and in date.
✅ what the casinos reputation is like. Use a search engine such as Google to search for user reviews of the casino in question. While the user reviews will never be completely perfect, if a casino has a high volume of negative reviews, then this is a good sign to stay away.
✅ Another aspect of what makes a good online casino is what games it has on offer. While there are a few game-specific platforms out there, the majority of online casinos these days will offer a range of games — from online slots to live poker. Choose wisely depending on what your preferred games are.
While there are a few individuals out there who will say that online casinos are unfair to players, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. All major casinos will have to put their games and software through vigorous testing processes in order to get licensed. These testing procedures test the software running the games to ensure that they meet the required standards for fairness and rely on truly random number generation. Most major websites will display the results of this testing with a seal of approval from a relevant testing agency, so be sure to look out for these on the website of your platform of choice. It is always a good idea to look out for these before committing any money to your account.
There are three main aspects that determine if a casino safe to play at:
Signing up at an online casino is a relatively straightforward affair these days. In fact, the most difficult part of this process is choosing one of the many casinos out there to play at. Once you have settled on an online casino, however, the process is very straightforward. Simply navigate to the homepage of the casino in question and begin the account creation process. This is usually accessible by a button beside the ‘log in’ button on the homepage. As part of this process, you will have to provide some personal information, including your name, address, age and email address. After you input all this information, you will need to verify your account, which is usually done through a link sent to your email and by providing a copy of a piece of official identification. Once your account is fully verified, simply transfer some funds to your account and start playing.
In the majority of cases, you will have to provide proof of your identity when playing online. This is usually required by online casinos to comply with ‘Know Your Customer’ regulations. These are in place to help prevent the use of casinos for money-laundering purposes or other criminal activity. You will usually need to provide identification as part of the set-up process.
Once you have submitted your identification, verification will usually take a maximum of one to two days. However, it is usually completed within a couple of hours. This will depend on the size of the casino in question, with the smaller online casinos tending to take longer to verify.
In theory, there is no upper limit to the amount of money you can win at an online casino. However, your ability to withdraw those winnings may come under certain limits depending on how much money you want to withdraw.
Once your account is fully set up and verified, you will be able to access your account no matter where you are in the world. As long as you have your log-in details and a working internet connection, you can access your account.
This completely depends on the platform as some online casinos may provide you with a certain amount of free spins on certain game types. Slot machines are a popular game, which can give free spins, although this will depend on the platform. Generally speaking, if you want to play for money, you will have to wager real money or funds provided through a welcome or promotional bonus.
The contact details of customer care will usually be found in the ‘contact us’ section of the website. Usually, this will include details to get in contact via email, phone, social media or a live chat function. Of these options, the live chat is usually the quickest and most efficient.
All winnings made on the platform are yours to keep and will accumulate in your account until you withdraw them from the platform. If you won any of these funds using a welcome or promotional bonus, there may be certain limits applied to these that you need to meet before you can withdraw them, so always be sure to check the fine print before you try to withdraw.
Players in Canada will not usually have to pay taxes on any winnings they make at online casinos. This is true in most cases except for professional poker or card players, who may have a different tax status.
According to Canadian tax law, winnings from a lottery are considered a ‘windfall’ and will not be subject to income tax. However, if you invest this money and it increases in value, you will be liable for capital gains tax.
Online gambling is fully legal online or in land-based casinos in Canada. Whether or not it is legal for you will depend on how old you are, so be sure to check what the legal age of gambling is in your province. Most Canadians can gamble from 19 years of age. However, in a number of provinces, this is lowered to 18 years old.
There are two ways to check how much money you have spent at an online casino. Firstly, you can check your bank account directly either using a dedicated banking app or by requesting a bank statement. An easier way of doing this, however, is to check directly through your casino account. Usually, you can access this information once you have logged in. where it will tell you how much money you have deposited to the platform, how much you have spent, and how much you have won in total.