Alberta and Saskatchewan are currently the only two provinces in Canada which don’t have a regulated online gambling service.
Gambling on the Internet is somewhat legal in Canada, and online casinos from this country can offer their services to the residents as long as they are officially licensed and run by the province that they operate in.
However, many Canadians enjoy online gambling on foreign websites, which is completely legal in this county. Contrary to the public opinion, international sites don’t pay any taxes for offering their services to Canadians, which the government of Alberta sees as a major issue.
Paul Burns, one of the members of the Canadian Gambling Association, had this to say: “Offerings coming from licenses through provincial gaming corporations are the clearly legal route in Canada. Where the grey area has come in Canada law is the offshore sites. They are not regulated in Canada. They don’t pay taxes, which is a real concern”.
That is why the AGLC — Alberta’s government agency for gambling, liquor, and cannabis — has put out a request for a developer who can create an official gambling network for the residents of this province. Several companies have already shown interest in this program and stated that they want to make a safe service for the Albertan gamblers, but no official decision has yet been made as to which developer will be behind the project. The commissioners say that the company will be chosen by this year’s summer and that the platform will start working sometime in 2020.
It is estimated that Albertans spend around $358 million on offshore gambling sites over the course of one year. Chara Goodings, one of the head commissioners at Alberta Gaming, Liquor & Cannabis, claims that the goal of creating a regulated service is not to promote more gambling, but to protect the province’s residents from international sites which can be unsafe and unreliable.
The new service will be completely legal and safe for all Albertan players. It won’t allow minors on the site, and it will make efforts to promote responsible gambling. The players will also have the option to select time and money limits, which can contribute to the control of gambling addicts.
