Gateway Casinos and Ontario Online Rules

In Ontario, online casino play runs as a regulated market. Before a private site can operate in the province, it needs two things. Step one is getting registered with the AGCO, the regulator. The second is a signed operating agreement, which comes from iGaming Ontario (iGO).

iGO publishes a directory of the authorized sites. That list helps when a site name is new to you and you want to know where it stands. OLG.ca works another way, since the provincial government runs that online casino itself.

iGaming Ontario's directory of authorized sites

You can play online in Ontario from age 19, as long as you are physically in the province. The age matches the door at the casino on Bay Street. The second part is about where you are when you play, so being on this side of the bridge is what counts. This guide covers Ontario rules only. It has nothing to say about online play on the Michigan side of the river, and it will not guess.

Without AGCO registration, a site accepting players from Ontario is not operating legally in the province, however polished it looks. Checking is easy: search for the site in the iGO directory of authorized sites. If its name does not appear, keep that firmly in mind before going further.

iGaming Ontario operates BetGuard (betguard.ca). A single registration locks a person out of each regulated Ontario site for online gambling, including OLG.ca. Each person decides the length: any span at all, or a fixed term, whether 5 years, 6 months or 1 year.

Walk-in casinos, the Bay Street one among them, are not part of it. For those, the answer is My PlayBreak, OLG's self-exclusion program, which you arrange with the OLG Support Centre on 1-800-387-0098.

The home page carries three paid Ad links: menu button, strip under the opening screen, box near the bottom. All three send you to the same private online casino firm, which pays the guide a commission but might be replaced. It runs as a business of its own and is not the Bay Street casino, Gateway Casinos or OLG. No bets are accepted and no accounts are opened through the guide.

Whatever site you end up on, you can look it up in the iGO directory of authorized sites first.