There has been tremendous growth in the online casino sector world over in the past one decade, and the Canadian market hasn’t remained untouched. The figures released by the Canadian Gaming Association revealed that the Canadian online gaming industry’s purchased services amounted to $ 14 billion, and the gross output was $ 31 billion for the year 2016. These numbers were projected to increase in the coming years.
Constantly increasing popularity of mobile gaming and online casinos has certainly given a major boost to the Canadian online casino industry. If we talk about the best online casino Canada has to offer today, there’s not just one, but quite a substantial number of them that are giving popular land casinos like Sand Hills, a run for their money.
Absence of centralised regulatory standards
Canadian Government has so far taken a decentralised approach as far as gambling regulation is concerned. This has enabled every Canadian province or territory to determine its own laws at the state level. The province of Québec continues to be the biggest and longest-established iGaming hub in Canada. It was the first one to grant online gambling casino licenses to operators. Many other states are taking a cue from Québec, and are increasingly relaxing their existing gambling laws, to benefit from the investment opportunities offered by the iGaming industry.
Rapidly catching on the action
The territories of Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario are working overtime to relax their online gambling laws, to facilitate easy operations of online casinos from their areas. They’re well aware of the lost revenue to unauthorized iGaming; a major chunk of business is going to the regions outside of Canada.
The Canadian online casino industry has been growing at such a pace that new brick-and-mortar casino projects are also being rejected amid concerns about their potential profitability, considering the fierce competition offered by the online market these days.
A grey area
There is plenty of uncertainty around the legalisation of Canadian online casinos, and this can prove to be a problem for the Canadian players. For instance, owing to non-centralised licensing and hazy laws, many innocent online players might find themselves inadvertently flouting the laws, having no protection in case anything goes wrong.
Regardless, the only way is up
It goes without saying that it’s only in the best interest of the Canadian government to clear a great deal of confusion that surrounds the online casino industry. As with anything associated with the Internet, it is only inevitable that the legislation would always lag a little behind the ground situation, as lawmakers normally struggle to keep pace with the emerging technologies.
However, as the Canadian iGaming market continues to be neglected by the government agencies, despite being immensely lucrative, a good number of Canadian online casino players as well as operators still find themselves in legal grey areas, something that’s not doing anyone any favours.
Whatever might happen, it cannot be denied that the Canadian online casino industry will only continue to grow in the future. The advancements in the virtual reality and mobile technology will be successfully incorporated in the online casino industry, and it’s highly likely that those virtual platforms would slowly and gradually replace the brick-and-mortar establishments.
