List of Best Online Casinos for Players from Canada in 2024

Information about Canadian casinos

Online casino players in Canada have a wide selection of sites to choose from, but it's not always simple to find great casinos that allow them to play games and deposit or withdraw money without issues.

This page is designed to help you find the best Canada casino for you: one that is rated highly by the Casino Guru team and that you can trust to give you an excellent online casino experience.

It's also a good idea to be informed of the gambling legislation in Canada, so read on to find out more about below.

Table of contents:

Land-based gambling in Canada

Since its formation at the end of the 19th century, the Canadian Criminal Code has permitted gambling under certain conditions, although this was quite restrictive: citizens could play some games of chance for charitable or religious purposes, but little else.

This changed in 1970, however, when drastic changes to the legislation allowed provinces to license and regulate gambling for the first time. The first commercial casinos appeared in Winnipeg and Montréal, followed by other provinces soon after, paving the way to the multi-billion-dollar gambling industry that exists today.

Canadian gambling laws are generally quite lenient, especially compared to the country's southern neighbor, the United States. Citizens can bet on casino games, sporting events and lottery-based games, including bingo and raffles.

Today, Canada seems to have struck a good balance between allowing land-based gambling to be a fun pastime, but with reasonable laws aimed at controlling problem betting. It's fair to say that Canada sets a good example for other nations to follow.

The Canadian gambling industry is regulated by a number of authorities whose job it is to check that gambling entities keep to the rules and provide the consumer with a safe playing experience.

Internet gambling in Canada

Canada has no specific law prohibiting online gambling, unlike many other countries. In fact, the topic is something of a grey area in Canadian law in that there is nothing that legalizes or prohibits the practice.

As such, it's perfectly safe and legal to play on a Canadian online casino as nothing forbids the user from doing so. Canadian law also doesn't stop players from using offshore casino sites, unlike in the USA.

One thing that is clear, however, is that, much like their bricks-and-mortar counterparts, unlicensed online casinos are strictly forbidden in Canada. Section 201(1) of the Canadian Code prohibits the 'keeping of a a common gaming or betting house': that is, an unlicensed establishment. There are substantial fines and even jail terms for operators who break this law.

While players are at no legal risk should they play on an unlicensed site, they might have problems depositing money and claiming winnings – so it's a good idea to use the Casino Guru system of finding a reliable casino to play on.

Players are also not taxed on their winnings, as long as they're playing for fun. If they show signs of professional skill and treat the games as a full-time job, then they run the risk of it being classed as a taxable activity.

Online gambling in Canada is surging in popularity with players more and more likely to play casino games at home than in a real-life casino. As such, it's likely that more options will appear in the future, so it's always a good idea to know how to choose the best Canadian sites to play on.

How to choose the best Canadian online casino

At Casino Guru, one of our main aims is to help players find safe and relevant online casinos. Firstly, for casino sites to appear on this list, they need to show that they accept players from Canada and that they allow them to deposit, gamble and withdraw their money.

Our team analyzes each casino and rates them according to their reputation and fairness, as well as other factors. To find the sites that meet these standards the best, you can use the filter system on this page.

Selecting the 'Recommended' tab at the top of the page will give you only the sites with a good rating. These are the ones you can feel confident about using, the ones that will treat you fairly. The 'Newly opened' and 'Big Brand' tabs will guide you to the most recent and most famous options respectively, just in case you want to narrow your options down in this manner. The 'All' tab, meanwhile, will display all the Canada-friendly options in our database.

For ways to whittle down your options even further, then our advanced filters are helpful and super easy to use. These include filters such as 'Withdrawal Limit', which could be useful to know about in the event of a big win, and 'Payment Method' — this could be used, for example, to find casinos that accept deposits from providers popular in Canada, such as Neosurf, Citadel, Interac or InstaDebit.

If you're new to online gambling, then our How to choose an online casino guide provides an in-depth look into the features you should look out for in the hunt for the perfect site. Spending a bit of time reading this will save you a lot of time and effort in the future when looking for a great place to play online casino games.