Provincial online casino sites compared: who runs what, and who can play

Which government site covers your province?

Gambling in Canada is provincial: section 207 of the Criminal Code lets each province conduct and manage lottery schemes, including online ones, within its own borders. That is why there is no single national casino site, and why the same software can sit behind different brands. The table below pulls together what each operator states on its own help pages and player terms.

Two columns in that table matter more than they look. "Where you must be" decides whether the site loads at all, and the deposit-limit column decides how quickly you can move money in after a change of mind.

Why does the PlayNow name appear in three provinces?

PlayNow began as BCLC's site for British Columbia. Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries runs its own PlayNow Manitoba, and its help pages describe BCLC as the service provider behind the platform. In Saskatchewan, the site is operated by the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority, and its terms of use define BCLC as part of the arrangement behind the site.

The shared name does not mean a shared account. Each version has its own player agreement, its own age rule and its own location fence. A Manitoba account at 18 does not carry over to the B.C. site, where the minimum is 19, and the B.C. site will not let you play from Winnipeg. The product menus also differ: Manitoba lists lottery, casino, sports, poker and bingo, while the Saskatchewan site is built around casino, sports and poker.

For the offshore and private-market picture in the west, see our page on online casinos in British Columbia.

Does it matter where you live, or only where you stand?

Both, depending on the province. Every site checks physical location. PlayNow Manitoba's help page says location data such as your IP address or coordinates is collected at log-in and periodically while you stay logged in, because of the site's legal obligations. OLG's player agreement says you must be physically located in Ontario each time you play any game. Loto-Québec asks you to be physically in Québec when you log in and runs a location check to confirm it.

Residency is a separate test, and it is not applied the same way everywhere:

• Manitoba requires both residency and physical presence to register.
• Alberta lets you open a Play Alberta account from elsewhere, but deposits and play only work inside the province.
• British Columbia states the physical-location rule for purchases; for paper lottery tickets, BCLC's FAQ adds that visitors aged 19 or older may buy B.C. products while in the province.

The practical result: a trip out of province pauses your account, it does not close it. Your balance stays where it is until you are back inside the border. The mechanics of the location check, and why it sometimes fails near a border, are covered in our piece on Ontario geolocation blocks.

How do the deposit-limit rules actually differ?

The common thread is that lowering a limit is instant and raising it is delayed. The length of the delay, and whether you must set a limit at all, varies.

Mandatory weekly limit: PlayNow

PlayNow Manitoba requires you to set a weekly deposit limit before your first deposit. The B.C. help page describes the same weekly limit, entered in C$1 increments up to C$100,000, and says increases take about 24 hours to come into effect. The B.C. page also states a maximum cash balance of C$250,000 and a minimum deposit of C$5.

Optional limit with a seven-day wait: OLG.ca

OLG's responsible gambling policy makes deposit limits optional. You can pick a rolling period of 24 hours, 168 hours or 720 hours. Decreases apply at once; an increase or removal only applies after a 168-hour cooling-off period, which is a full week rather than a day. In June 2026, OLG announced that certain online players under 25 must set a deposit cap.

Daily, weekly or monthly: Play Alberta

Play Alberta lets you cap deposits over a day, a week or a month. Lowering the cap is immediate and raising it takes 24 hours. The minimum deposit is C$5.

Deposit plus wager and time limits: alc.ca

Atlantic Lottery's PlayWise tools combine a weekly deposit limit with a daily wager limit, which counts everything you stake in a day, including money you won, and a session time limit. Promo cash and scan-to-deposit funds are not counted against the deposit limit.

If you want a limit to stick on a bad night, the OLG design is the strictest of the four: a week to undo. If you expect to raise a limit for a planned occasion, the 24-hour sites are easier to live with.

18 or 19: where does the age line fall?

Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta set the age at 18; British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces use 19. Ontario has one split worth knowing. OLG's player agreement allows players who are at least 18 to buy draw-based lottery games online, while casino and other pay-to-play games require 19. The AGCO's Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming write the same exception into standard 3.01: an 18-year-old may use a gaming site solely to buy a lottery ticket. For the full province-by-province breakdown, including land-based casinos, see gambling age by province.

What changes where private sites are also legal?

Two provinces no longer have a single legal option. In Ontario, the AGCO's internet gaming standards apply to OLG's site, to iGaming Ontario and to every registered private operator, so OLG.ca competes inside a regulated market rather than standing alone. Our Ontario casino guide covers that market.

Alberta followed. AGLC's iGaming page says that as of July 13, operators may run legally registered platforms in the province, provided they are registered with AGLC and have signed a commercial agreement with the Alberta iGaming Corporation. AGLC handles regulatory oversight; the corporation handles commercial agreements, anti-money laundering and financial reporting. Play Alberta continues alongside them. AGLC also says advertising for approved operators carries the Alberta iGaming Corporation logo, which gives you a quick way to tell a registered site from an unregistered one.

Everywhere else, the provincial site is the only online casino operating under provincial authority. Offshore sites that accept players from those provinces do so without provincial oversight, and complaints go to whoever licensed them abroad, not to a Canadian regulator.

What does the Atlantic site cover, and what does it leave out?

Atlantic Lottery serves four provinces, but its app page marks casino games as available in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador only. Prince Edward Island players can use alc.ca for lotto and other products listed there, but not for the casino section. ALC's corporate blog describes the online games as a legal option backed by age and residency verification and customizable deposit and wager limits. The 19+ rule applies to buying, playing or redeeming any ALC product.

Quebec has a similar quirk in game pacing. Loto-Québec states a minimum duration of three seconds per game on its online casino. Ontario's standard 2.18 sets 2.5 seconds between slot game cycles for every regulated site, OLG's included. Both rules slow the spin rate compared with sites that allow quick-spin features.