United States and Canada are neighboring nations with friendly relations, but they have their own differences in terms of legislation of various issues. For example, online gambling laws are not the same on both sides of the border, as each country has its own approach to this socially divisive activity. Since many players regularly travel between USA and Canada, they should be properly informed about rules that govern this field.
It’s important to understand betting rules in the location where you are residing in order to avoid running afoul of the law. Let’s compare Canada and its southern neighbor based on several aspects of online gambling regulations by answering some essential questions.
Both of these nations leave regulation of online gambling to its federal subjects, i.e. states or provinces. That effectively means that online gambling doesn’t have the same status throughout the nation, and could be banned in one part of the country while being perfectly legal in another. Only six US States currently allow online casinos to serve their residents, while 38 states support sports betting. Meanwhile, as of 2024 all of Canadian provinces have embraced internet gambling in some form. The exact conditions for play remain variable, so to learn what exactly is allowed you would need to study the regulations for a particular U.S. state or Canadian province. In the absence of a national gambling authority in either country, the rules will continue to evolve based on the current interests and voter attitudes in each jurisdiction.
Every online casino in Canada or the United States must have a valid license issued by the relevant authorities, but the nations disagree on which licenses should be accepted. In the USA, only locally registered companies can run online betting websites and similar gambling-related services, which effectively puts the entire market firmly into the hands of American operators. Meanwhile, Canada lets offshore casino sites to establish presence within its borders, and as a result has a more diverse offer of casino propositions. That basically means that Canadians can play at some US sites, but the opposite doesn’t hold true. All gambling companies have to respect certain limitations, for example not providing services to minors or allowing money laundering through player accounts. Companies that don’t play by the rules can easily have their licenses revoked, which would effectively lock them out of the lucrative North American markets.
There is no federal ban on advertising online betting services in either country, although there have been some civic initiatives that call for a partial or total ban. However, states and provinces have the power to limit the presence of betting shop and casino ads in the mass media and some of them have done so. For example, Ontario prohibits the appearance of celebrities and athletes in advertisements for online sports betting platforms to avoid a conflict of interest. At present time, sports betting and online casino providers are freely advertising in both Canada and the US, and they are sponsoring numerous high-profile events. This is certainly one of the primary drivers of increased popularity of online betting all over North America.
Two nations have completely opposite views when it comes to taxation of income made by winning online bets. In Canada, gambling is not considered a regular source of income and is thus not subject to taxation of any kind. The US has a much stricter interpretation of financial regulations, and imposes taxes of 25% on betting or casino winnings, regardless of the amount involved. Interestingly, the taxes are collected on the federal level by the IRS rather than the states that otherwise control gambling activities. The authorities go as far as to include a section for gambling wins and losses on the official tax form. This means US-based gamblers are at a disadvantage, but on the other hand the government has more funds at its disposal to help people struggling with a gambling addiction or fund enforcement of the regulations.
Since gambling laws are not uniform in either United States or Canada, it’s difficult to say which country is better in general. The availability of online betting services is practically universal in Canada, but legal age and other details might depend on your location. In the United States, online gambling may be severely restricted or even completely banned in some parts of the country, so a large percentage of Americans are in a less favourable position than a typical Canadian. Another huge advantage for Canadian gamblers is the absence of taxes, which allows them to keep more of their winnings. Both markets are very strong and feature lots of legitimate providers, while the regulatory environment is well-defined and consistently enforced. Overall, it may be a little better to live in Canada if you like to bet on the internet, but the difference is not huge and some locations in the US such as Nevada and New Jersey have very strong iGaming industries.
