The Great White North is a place renowned for its stunning snow landscapes and kind people. However, the world’s second-largest country also has an interesting history with gambling pastimes that most people do not know about, and its history with these runs far deeper than many would expect. Europeans did not bring games of chance to the north of North America. No, the indigenous people of these regions enjoyed various activities that involved a chance-based element and social betting long before the settlers came and brought their card and dice games. The latter were super popular in trading posts and military camps in 18th-century Canada.
That said, the US’ northern neighbor did not adopt a legal framework concerning gambling fun until British rule, which was inherited from England. Like over there, gambling was also seen as immoral and dangerous in Canada, with many fearing the social dangers these pastimes bring. Hence, by the mid-1800s, virtually all forms of wagering were deemed illegal in the country, and this was something set firm in legislation through the nation’s Criminal Code, which remained unchanged for decades.
In the late 1960s, things evolved as the Criminal Code of Canada got amended, with provinces being allowed to manage their own lotteries, and in the 1990s, the casino scene opened up. Though it was not until 2010 that Canada saw expansion into the remote casino domain, something that occurred first in British Columbia, on its PlayNow site operated by the BCLC, or the British Columbia Lottery Corporation. That opened the doors for nomadic gaming in BC.
Below, we get into how a land famous for hockey and maple syrup went from a territory with one online casino available to residents of a single province to a country with a booming interactive gaming sphere rich with live games.
The Evolution of Online Gambling Laws in Canada
Today, the availability of Internet slots and live online casino games in Canada is excellent. However, as mentioned above, this was not always so. In fact, this is actually a rather recent development, as British Columbia launched PlayNow in 2004, but added casino games to it in 2010. That same year, Quebec went live with a platform that featured poker and table games, and in 2013, Manitoba entered into a partnership with British Columbia to offer PlayNow.
Yet, it was not until the early 2020s that things really took off in Canada on the online gambling front. In 2020, Alberta established its remote gaming platform, PlayAlberta.ca, looking to recoup budget losses stemming from the global COVID-19 pandemic, and New Brunswick did the same a few months earlier, becoming the first Atlantic province to do so.
In 2022, Saskatchewan spearheaded Canada’s first Indigenous-led online launch, allowing PlayNow via a deal between the BCLC and the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority. Nova Scotia opened its casino site, ALC.ca, which was technically an expansion of its lottery’s gambling offering, and the truly earth-shattering move in the Canadian online gambling realm occurred in April of 2022, when Ontario decided to open its market to private operators. Before this, the nation’s Internet gaming landscape was dominated by lottery-based monopolies. So, this was quite a big thing.
Today, Ontario’s gambling market is expectedly dominating, with billions of dollars in wagers made here per year, with online casinos accounting for much of this activity, followed by sports betting. Therefore, the establishment of a fully regulated web gambling industry has opened up many Canadians’ eyes to the availability and benefits of playing casino games remotely.
The Appeal of Offshore Sites
What is interesting about Canada is that even before it founded its many casino websites, its citizens were no strangers to enjoying gaming entertainment from anywhere at any time. In fact, one can say that Canada, in a way, pioneered this hobby. That statement can be made on the grounds that the country had one of the world’s first online gambling regulators, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, founded in 1996, two years after the first law that authorized gambling over the Internet got passed in Antigua and Barbuda.
Accordingly, Canadians were free to explore platforms legalized by this body operating in its native Mohawk territory near Montreal, as this was not noted as illegal behavior under any Canadian law. They were also not restricted from accessing internationally licensed hubs that offered games of chance to people all over the globe. Consequently, many Canadians were well-experienced in chance-based luck testing online even before all provinces established websites where their residents could do this.
Even today, many people living in Canada still prefer foreign sites, once regulated in places like Anjouan, Malawi, and Curacao, over home ones, due to these platforms accepting cryptos, hosting games from more than a hundred providers, having novelty features like staking, unique loyalty systems that make it worthwhile to play on those sites long term, and boasting extensive offerings of live games.
The Massive Popularity of Live Gaming
Live casino games were first seen in the mid-2000s in Asia, as industry giant Playtech first experimented with them in around 2003, through a soft launch of a platform aimed at Asian players. In 2006, Microgaming, now Games Global, entered this arena, and Evolution Gaming, the current sphere juggernaut, was created. Still, it was not until the start of the 2010s that live dealer options began to gain traction globally, once Internet penetration and mobile hardware caught up, and these products could be enjoyed globally.
Today, this genre has moved way past table classics into unique products that blend a game show vibe and mix physical-machine gameplay with RNG-style action. These and standard live options offer authentic human interaction, are available around the clock, and deliver high-end production values. For most, they are a pick that combines the best aspects of real-world casino dynamics and the convenience and flexibility that remote play supplies.
Post-2017, when Evolution debuted its first streaming wheel game, Dream Catcher, this category has exploded, with Evolution leading the charge, but many other top providers are doing their part aslo, such as Pragmatic Play, the already mentioned Playtech, Quickspin, and others, with many of these even creating live variations of their most popular slots.
