IGO Focused on Eradicating Illegal Online Casino Activity

In only the past two years, the laws regarding igaming in Canada drastically changed.

In 2021, online sportsbooks were legalized and the following year, in April 2022, looser laws were applied to online casinos.

This move was an important and historic step for Canada, especially in terms of the economy. Its investment and openness in this industry are a win-win for both parties involved.

It is understood that the country has much to benefit from in regulating online casino activity, as stated by the Board Chair of the Igo Fave Forestell.

Many platforms, such as bet365 and 1xBet, two of the largest online casino companies operating in Canada, originally started out illegally in the Canadian market, but have since acquired legal status following the updates in regulations.

This unfortunately has not been the case for all online gambling platforms one can access in Canada.

The iGaming Ontario Authority recently expressed serious concern regarding the fact that a myriad of companies is illegally distributing their product and services to the Canadian market.

IGO is responsible for monitoring online casino companies operating in Canada, ensuring that they follow the set protocols and most of all, safeguarding Canadian consumers by privatising and legalising these companies.

Their concern is that platforms operating illegally are first, not sharing their profits with the province and more shockingly, often ignore key regulations such as:

• prioritising responsible gaming by offering prompts and guidelines for players to follow

• employing anti-money laundering security systems and processes

• following responsible gaming jurisdiction as specified by various gaming authorities

• do not put in place any player protection protocols

This makes for an extremely dangerous and unsafe online gambling environment where, unfortunately, players could very easily get scammed.

How Does IGO Plan on Stopping Illegal Casino Companies?

A few plans of action have been devised in the hopes of eliminating these untrustworthy, illegal online gambling platforms.

• Enforcing a License System

It is adamant that every online casino in Canada is covered by a license issued by a legitimate gambling authority such as the Malta Gaming Authority.

Casinos that are able to maintain such a license demonstrate that they meet the criteria set by these gambling authorities and prioritise user safety.

• Raise Public Awareness

It is important for audiences to be aware and educated about what to look out for when joining online casinos.

As we often mention in our own casino reviews, before signing up it's essential to check out what license the casino holds, whether it has a functional customer support service and whether responsible gaming guidelines are provided.

We would also recommend taking a look at which payment options are available at your casino of choice. Be sure to use tried and tested trustworthy payment options which fully encrypt transactions.

• Enforcing Stricter Laws

Unfortunately, Ontario does remain one of the regions in Canada with the strictest laws regarding online gambling.

But this is with good reason, considering all that we have discussed above.

Despite the fact that these laws do restrict a lot of igaming content to us, they do keep the online gambling environment safe for us to enjoy.

• Collaborating with the Media

IGO wishes to ask social media and other media platforms to comply with the guidelines it sets and to work towards filtering igaming content and ads which are diffused on their platforms.

This means not showing any misleading ads or promoting companies which are not trustworthy.

As it stands now, only 70 online gambling companies are functioning legally within the Canadian market.

Look out for the IGO'S logo at your casino of choice to verify whether or not it is regulated by the authority.

It is expected that many more casinos will be added to the list in 2023.