Quebec Pushing to Block Foreign Online Casinos

March 31, 2015

Online gambling law in Canada is a bit of a complicated mess. The provinces have the ability to run their own online casinos, but they aren't very good, and a lot of players don't even know about them. This has led to a situation like that in Quebec where the government's Espacejeux online gambling portal isn't very well-known, and it doesn't capture much of the market at all. As a result, the government is constantly looking for ways to try to pull in more of the market to that site because that's the only way they can make revenue from the current system for online gambling in the country.

Along these lines, Quebec's government has been pushing for legislation that will allow them to force Internet Service Providers to block a list of online gambling sites. While this measure isn't very likely to pass because of an almost certain backlash over restricting Internet access and the freedom of information, it does show a fundamental problem with how online gambling is handled in the country. A simple change in some of the rules for licensing would make it simple for the government to get revenues while giving players better options.

Government-operated games cannot compete with foreign operators. They don't have enough experience to do it, and they're up against companies who have often been in business for decades. Can you imagine trying to start your own online casino from scratch and then competing against Canadian giants like Maple Casino and Microgaming? It would be impossible to gain much ground. This is why the government needs to change the law to allow provinces to license foreign operators to run inside of their borders. This would eliminate all of the problems of the current system of doing things while increasing revenues from the games.

Unfortunately, that might be too simple of a solution for government officials. For some reason, they think it's necessary to over-complicate every issue they become involved in. For Canadian players, this is setting a dangerous precedent that's trying to restrict the choices players have and lower the competition that has sprung up around the Canadian online casino market. Along these lines, players could expect worse selections of games and promotions as well as a worse overall experience. Hopefully this legislation doesn't pass, but we'll have to see what happens in 2015.