Every Province's Official Online Casino, Compared in One Grid

Ask where to play casino games online legally in Canada and the honest answer starts with another question: which province are you standing in? The Criminal Code leaves the conduct and management of gaming to provincial governments, so there is no single national site. Instead there is a patchwork of Crown corporations, shared platforms and, in two provinces, open markets with private operators.

This guide puts the official sites side by side. Every age, date and product listed below comes from the operator's own pages, provincial announcements or regulator material listed in the sources. Where we could not open a reliable source for a detail, the detail is left out rather than guessed.

The grid: who runs the official site in each province

The rest of this page explains each row, because the same logo can hide very different arrangements. For a province-by-province overview of the wider market, see our regions hub.

PlayNow: one platform, three provinces, three set-ups

British Columbia

PlayNow.com is run by BCLC and describes itself as the official gaming site for residents of British Columbia. Its help pages say you must be 19 or older and a BC resident to register, and you must be physically in the province to buy products. Identity, age and residency are checked against an Equifax Canada credit file, which is why some people with a thin or very new credit history are asked for photo ID and a utility bill.

The product range is broad for a government site: slots and table games, live casino, poker, bingo, sports betting and lottery. Account controls are built in. The minimum deposit is C$5, a weekly deposit limit can be set in C$1 steps and lowered at any time (increases take about 24 hours), and the maximum account balance is C$250,000.

Manitoba

Manitoba does not run a separate platform. PlayNow's help pages say registered Manitoba players can use the same site for casino, lottery, poker, bingo and sports, and that Manitoba and BC share poker and bingo networks, so you may sit at a table with players from the other province. The same pages add that you can only play in your province of residence.

The age rule is the main difference. PlayNow's promotional terms, which list eligibility province by province, set 18 or older for Manitoba residents against 19 for British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The same terms name Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation alongside BCLC as the parties behind the Manitoba offer.

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan's version launched on 3 November 2022. The provincial announcement describes a layered arrangement: the site is managed by SaskGaming, operated by the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA), regulated by the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority, and runs on BCLC's PlayNow platform. The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations called it a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing partnership between First Nations and the province.

Players must be 19 or older. At launch the site offered more than 500 casino games and sports betting, with live dealer games expected in December 2022 and poker to follow in 2023.

Alberta: from one site to an open market

Play Alberta went live on 1 October 2020 as the province's first regulated online casino, launched by AGLC. Global News reported at the time that players had to be 18 or older, that the site opened with virtual slots and table games, and that the platform was built by NeoPollard Interactive under a seven-year agreement.

The bigger change came on 13 July 2026, when Alberta's regulated iGaming market went live and Alberta became the second province, after Ontario, to open to private online operators. On launch day nearly 50 companies had paid C$200,000 in registration and permit fees, and the minister responsible said 22 were ready to take customers. AGLC is the regulator. The practical upshot for a player in Alberta: Play Alberta is no longer the only legal option, but a private site is only legal if it is registered in Alberta. Our Alberta page tracks the market.

Ontario: OLG.ca plus a regulated private market

Ontario runs two layers. OLG conducts and manages OLG.ca, which was the only internet gaming site regulated by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) before the open market launched. OLG.ca offers slots, live casino and table games, sports betting through PROLINE+, pools and lottery. Its site states 19+ for online casino and sports betting and 18+ for lottery, and says it is for adults in the Province of Ontario.

Since 4 April 2022, private operators registered with the AGCO can also offer casino and sports betting. iGaming Ontario, created on 6 July 2021 as an AGCO subsidiary, signs the operating agreements; it became an independent agency on 12 May 2025 under the iGaming Ontario Act. All sites, including OLG.ca, must follow the AGCO's Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming. We explain the structure in detail in how Ontario's iGaming market works.

Quebec: lotoquebec.com

Loto-Québec describes lotoquebec.com as the only legal gaming website in Québec. The range covers casino games (slots, table games, live casino, virtual sports and keno), lotteries and instant games, sports betting including live betting and sports pools, poker and bingo. The minimum age is 18.

As with the other provincial sites, it is built for residents of its own province, so a visitor from Ontario or a tourist should not expect to open an account. Loto-Québec also lists a help and referral line for gambling problems, 1-800-461-0140. More context is on our Quebec page.

Atlantic Canada: alc.ca

New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador are served by Atlantic Lottery through alc.ca rather than four separate provincial sites. The product mix and the exact casino offer have differed between the four provinces over the years, and Atlantic Lottery's own terms pages were not reachable when this guide was prepared, so we do not list a game count or an age here. Check the age requirement and the games available to your province in the alc.ca terms before you register.

How the provincial sites differ in practice

Once you look past branding, four differences matter more than game counts:

• Age. Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba allow play from 18; BC, Saskatchewan and Ontario online casino require 19. A birthday that makes you legal in Gatineau does not make you legal across the river in Ottawa.
• Residency and location. PlayNow in BC requires you to be a BC resident and to be physically in the province when you buy, and OLG.ca is for adults in Ontario. Moving province means a new account on a different site, not a change of address on the old one.
• Bonuses. Government sites run promotions too, and they come with wagering rules. A 2024 PlayNow match deposit offer, for example, gave free play equal to the deposit with a 30x wagering requirement on slots only. Read our wagering requirement maths before treating any match as free money.
• Where the money goes. Global News reported in 2020 that Play Alberta's revenue goes to the province's general revenue fund, while SIGA says all net proceeds from the Saskatchewan site are reinvested in Saskatchewan under a revenue-sharing arrangement with First Nations.

Where private and offshore sites fit

Outside Ontario and, since July 2026, Alberta, no province registers private online casinos. Sites licensed elsewhere, including the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, still take Canadian players, and that is the space most comparison sites cover. The trade-off is recourse: if something goes wrong on a provincial or provincially registered site, there is a Canadian regulator to escalate to. Our guide to complaining about an online casino sets out the routes for each type of licence.

The short version

If you want a site run or registered by your own province, the grid at the top is the whole map: PlayNow in the three western provinces it serves, Play Alberta or a registered private site in Alberta, OLG.ca or an iGaming Ontario operator in Ontario, lotoquebec.com in Quebec and alc.ca in Atlantic Canada. Check the age, confirm you are physically in the province, and set a deposit limit before the first deposit rather than after it.

Frequently asked questions