Quebec Online Casino
After Ontario, Quebec is Canada’s most populous province, being home to about eight and a half million residents as of 2019.
This charming region of Canada isn’t just popular for its delightful French-based culture, the booming maple syrup industry, and the lovely mess of a dish known as Poutine.
Quebec is also home to many fantastic casinos. If you love a good old game of chance, you not only can visit one of the province’s world-class land-based casinos but also have legal access to a veritable bevy of top-tier Canadian online casinos and sportsbooks.
Just how much variety there is out there as far as gambling options are concerned is, unfortunately, both a gift and a curse. The multitude of options means there’s a website for everyone, and you’re unlikely to get bored.
It, however, also means that it’s a lot more difficult to find the highest-quality websites amongst the available options. But that’s where we come in. We’ve done all the legwork and put together this guide to show you everything you need to know about the best online casinos Quebec.
Top Online Casinos for Québec 2024
If you’ve been wondering about the best Québec real money casinos, look no further because you’ve come to the right place.
It took us a while and a good amount of caffeine, but we’ve managed to come up with a list of the top online casinos available to Quebec residents:
Why You Should Switch to Online Casinos
It wasn’t very long ago when you had to physically go to a casino to play all of your favourite casino games and dance with risk. It could cost a lot, as far as transport was concerned, and you had to deal with other obnoxious gamblers.
Online gambling platforms offer all the great games and payouts that traditional casinos do, but without any of the inconveniences.
There are also many reasons why we feel online gambling is better than gambling in at land-based establishments. We’ve laid out some of the most significant ones for you here.
Bonuses
For a lot of people, casino bonuses are easily the best part of using Québec online casinos. They help pad your wallet with extra gambling funds, which is undeniably awesome when you’re short on cash.
And since they wouldn’t want you leaving their site to look for greener pastures, many operators will go out of their way to throw as many at you as they can afford.
They’re almost always easy to use, requiring no more than a deposit and/or the use of a special casino bonus code for you to claim your reward.
If you can work well within the limits of the terms and conditions of a website’s bonuses, they’re definitely a very good reason for you to leave traditional casinos in favour of the online alternative.
Usability
Another reason why online casinos are better than casinos in the real world is their usability. All the best online casinos Quebec seek to provide as fantastic a user experience to you as they can.
One of the ways top-tier operators enhance their platforms’ user experiences is by coming up with great web designs that make for easy navigation.
These sites lay everything out in a way that the average gamer can understand. Brick-and-mortar casinos tend to be hard to navigate in comparison due to generally being big places with lots of people in them.
It’s easy to get lost in the maze. And even if you can find what you’re looking for, the rules of each game may not be as intuitive to understand as an online casino.
Variety
There can only be so many physical casinos in a given area. Construction is expensive in general, and casinos are usually extravagant places with a lot of fancy decorations and all.
A such, you tend to see very few of them in any city that’s not called “Las Vegas”. This isn’t a problem with online casinos, though.
The cost of setting them up is a lot lower in comparison, and with how similar the internet is to the Wild West as far as regulation.
For Quebec residents, there are loads of new online casinos popping up every day. This means online gambling gives you a lot more options than gambling at brick-and-mortar casinos, as far as what kind of vibe you can choose.
You can also find way more slots, blackjack, and roulette variants in online casinos.
Privacy
As one of the biggest advantages of playing online for sure, privacy is important for a lot of people. You can gamble in peace without anybody knowing about your hobby, which is still seen as a vice by a lot of people today.
Doing it from behind a computer screen is a lot better than in the flesh somewhere. The typical Québec casino online is bound by strict laws when it comes to the security of your personal information.
With crypto online gaming sites, you may not have to enter your real name. You also don’t have to show your face. The best sites also make good use of data encryption to keep you anonymous and safe.
Banking Options
Another way online casinos are way better than brick-and-mortar casinos is in banking options. If you’re at a physical establishment, you generally have to pay in cash or with a card.
The magic of the internet saves you from these limitations as well, though. That’s because any online gambling website worth its salt lets you fund your account and take payouts with a variety of methods.
You often find Interac casinos, iDebit casinos, and Instadebit casino. You can even find Bitcoin casinos for playing your favourite casino games online.
Customer Support
While many physical casinos have great customer service, with polite employees that care about serving customers, this isn’t always the case.
Most of the time, land-based casino employees are less than enthusiastic due to long shifts and often unimpressive salaries. This issue isn’t shared by online casinos.
As most online casinos have lower profit margins than brick-and-mortar casinos, they can afford to invest more into their customer service departments.
This obviously means better support features and reps that are more polite, competent and helpful than their offline counterparts.
The History of Online Gambling in Québec
Gambling has a very long history in Canada. Most gamblers can only trace the pastime’s history as far back as the pioneer times when European settlers would play card games.
However, Canada’s gambling history can be traced all the way back to the 13th century, when natives would use sticks and stones to play games of chance.
Unfortunately, the 19th century saw lots of restrictions imposed on gambling by the Canadian government. These bans, however, only lasted from the 1800s to around 1970, when the law began to relax more.
Since then, gambling has expanded immensely in Quebec and the other provinces. Players now have a lot of options to choose from and Québec has a fascinating gambling history of its own.
Here are some of the highlights from the history of gambling in Quebec:
- In 1969, Loto-Quebec was founded by the Government to oversee all games of chance in the province. The organization continues to operate in 2024, with all profits being returned to the public.
- The Société des casinos du Quebec (SCQ) was created in 1992 to build casinos. The Montreal Casino was then opened that same year.
- In 2010, Loto-Quebec launched espacejeux.com, the official Quebec-based online casino. It competes with tens of top sites from offshore jurisdictions.
How Does Québec Regulate Casinos?
When the Criminal Code of Canada elected to allow the provinces to do what they wanted as far as their laws of gambling, Quebec took it very seriously. The province decided to regulate online gambling on its own under the Lotto-Quebec.
To do this, the website Espacejeux was set up. Currently, it is considered the only legal online gaming platform regulated by the Quebec Alcohol, Racing and Gaming Commission.
The website was designed to offer Québécois gamblers as many online games as possible. It includes all the most popular Canadian games like lotteries, casino games, skill games, poker games, and bingo.
In other words, whatever form of gambling is legal in Quebec can now be found online at their official website (including sports betting). Of course, to be able to play any of these games online, you must be at least 18 by the laws of Quebec.
Taxes
It’s widely known that income taxes in Quebec are higher than most in the North American region, almost approaching 50% for residents earning $136.270 or more.
Having said that, winnings made from gambling are not subject to Québécois income taxes. Due to the inconsistency that’s inherent in how much you can make playing on the slot machine, winnings made from gambling don’t qualify as part of your income.
So, all gamblers, professional or amateur, don’t have to pay anything to the government from the money they rake in from Québec online casinos.
Regulatory outlook
With the current gambling situation in Quebec, it doesn’t look like any change is coming down the pipe. This isn’t very surprising when you consider how permissive Canada, and thus Quebec, is of gambling.
The legal age for gambling is 18, the winnings are non-taxable, and there aren’t many limitations on what gambling activities you can participate in when compared to other regions. It seems the general public is mostly satisfied with the current setup.
Getting Help with Responsible Gambling in Québec
While we all love to gamble, the fact of the matter is, the pastime can easily ruin your life if you let it get out of control.
You could be on a hot streak and find yourself hooked to the gratification of constantly coming out on top in your favourite games. Then, all of a sudden, you start losing.
This is hard to take for most people, and they’ll continue throwing money at the problem, forgetting that if they play long enough, the house always wins.
If you let your hobby get out of hand, you can lose the shirt off your back. That’s because many gamblers begin to put more money down to fund their gambling.
Fortunately, the Loto-Québec puts a lot of effort into creating a safe environment for Québécois gamblers. They’re always putting a lot of money into providing support for those who fall prey to problem gambling.
The organization sets up various hotlines you can call if you or a loved one finds yourself in the throes of gambling addiction.
If you, or someone you know, needs help, you visit aidejeu.ca or call 1‑800‑461‑0140. This bilingual service is strictly confidential, free and anonymous, and is available 24/7, anywhere in Québec.
Apart from these helplines, online casinos in Quebec provide a variety of responsible gaming tools to help players stay safe.
These tools include deposit, bet, and loss limits. You can also engage the different customer support teams to take a break or self-exclude yourself from gambling for a while.
Conclusion
If you’ve read up to this point of our guide, you must certainly now have a good amount of knowledge about the online gambling situation in Quebec.
You’ll have learnt that Québec casinos online have a lot to offer users as far as customer service, bonuses and game selection and more.
You may have also learnt a lot about the history of gambling in Quebec, maybe with a newfound interest to learn more about it.
In addition, you should have a good idea about how regulation works in the province to keep gambling safe and trustworthy for its residents.
Whatever benefit you got from reading our guide, we’re glad to have helped you out and we hope that you enjoy your time browsing through the best online casinos Quebec.
FAQ
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Is Gambling in Offshore Casinos Legal in Quebec?
As is often the case, a country can only set rules and regulations for people and activities within its borders. Therefore, the government of Quebec has no power to pursue offshore operators from outside Canada.
If the online casino is not physically located in Quebec, it is safe to operate and accept players from this province, as it doesn’t fall under Quebec’s jurisdiction. This, as you can imagine, didn’t seem like a beneficial deal to the provincial government of Quebec.
To prevent offshore casinos from taking over their customers, they passed a bill that was meant to restrict any foreign online gaming operator. Bill 74 ordered ISPs to put an IP block on the offshore casinos, thus effectively making them illegal.
Luckily for Canadian players, this didn’t last for long. The case was brought to the Supreme Court of Canada by The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA). The Court declared this legislation unconstitutional and lifted the ban.
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What is the legal gambling age in Ontario?
Many countries have very restrictive and limiting laws in concern to gambling, especially the US, which requires players in most states to be at least 21 years of age.
In Quebec, however, players are only required to be over the age of 18. It is one of the few Canadian provinces that don’t impose a minimum gambling age of 19.
This gives a lot more Canadians the opportunity to get into playing games of chance than there is in less permissive places.
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How popular is online gambling in Québec?
While there are many local gambling options available to the Québécois, it isn’t very clear whether or not people prefer their online options. Online gambling tends to be more convenient with less hassle or stress.
It also tends to be more easily accessible. But offline gambling has been around for a very long time and people are creatures of habit, who tend to shy away from new things in favour of what’s comfortable.
It is almost impossible to know how popular online gambling is at the moment. But, judging by current trends, we are sure it will continue to rise in popularity as the years go by.
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What are the most popular online gambling games in Quebec?
Blackjack is definitely amongst the most played game of chance amongst the Québécois. This popular card game is beloved generally because users have a higher chance of winning this than other games.
You can also find tons of slot games on any Québec online casino since people in the province and all over the world love to spin reels and the chance to win a fat payout.
Roulette is another world-famous game that’s beloved by Canadians too for its simplicity and the excitement associated with picking the right colour.
As a Quebec resident, you can also play Baccarat and Video Poker, which are also very popular card games on the online gambling scene.