Games of chance have a long history in Canada. Since 1999, Canadians have been able to enjoy all the fun of the casino online, but the very earliest European traders and fur-trappers to migrate here in the 1500s also carried dice and card decks for entertainment. For centuries before they arrived, indigenous tribes in North America had their own gambling games and carved gaming sticks, as witnessed by John Cabot on his first landfall in 1497. The urge to test our luck and chase windfalls, it appears, is common to all human cultures.
As French, English and other settlers colonised Canada, lottery games and bingos were imported from Europe, and horse racing has also been a popular diversion since being formally established more than 200 years ago in Quebec. Powers to regulate gambling was devolved to the provinces and territories in 1970, and all 13 now use state-owned lotteries, casinos and bingo halls as a lucrative source of revenue for healthcare and education, among other areas.
But it was the Mohawk people of the Kahnawake Territory who brought Canada the casino online, when they asserted their sovereign right to make their own gaming laws and set up the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to begin licensing and regulating online casino operations internationally. Provincial authorities have since followed suit, again seeing the benefits of applying casino online profits to social programmes.
How to Choose a Casino Online
One thing a casino online can do better than most land-based operations is offer players a wider choice. There is no limit to the number of players that can play popular titles simultaneously, for example, so players never have to wait for a favourite machine to free up, or search for a spot at a card table. A casino online can also offer players attractive bonuses, like free slots spins or matching their deposits.
The ever-increasing number of operations also makes it easy for Canadians to find a casino online. But as attractive as the casino online experience is, there are some common-sense precautions to take beforehand. If they’re playing for real money, rather then just for fun using credits, banking security is obviously their first priority. Reputable sites will display certification on their home pages, independently verified, that their encryption software is of a high enough standard to protect players’ banking data.
Remember the Basics of Online Safety
Apart from banking security, the other thing a player wants from a casino online is privacy protection. They need to check a site’s privacy policy, as well as the audit certificates that guarantee an operation’s games are fair. Once they’re sure they’re dealing with a reputable site that treats players honestly, all they have left to do is pick a game and play.
More than Enough Game Options
When picking a top Canadian online casino, review sites are also helpful. Not only do they often link to their top-rated casinos, but they also give players an appraisal of the playing experience at each one, allowing players to find a casino online that suits them. In addition, they will also host player reviews, so it is easy to find the sites that feature regularly in complaints about customer service or payout issues.
Compilation sites that can link Canadians directly to each casino online are also worth checking out. Most allow visitors to search by a variety of filters, so slots fans can find the casinos with their favourite titles, a player can limit themselves to only playing games with progressive jackpots, or designed by their favourite developer, and so on.