Is it legal to play on line in Canada? :confused:

I am not a lawyer. Consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction for an official answer. OKâ€¦ legal stuff out of the way, I will give you my understanding.

Very briefly, here are a few thoughts. This is a LONG way from a complete answer, but itâ€™s a start.

Gambling in provincially regulated in Canada. What this means is that running a gambling game (poker or whatever) is criminal unless you have a license which is given out by a provincial authority.

It is clear that you are not allowed to get a license in Idaho, for instance, and use it to run a game in a bar in Toronto. There is no doubt about this.

So, the million dollar question is, "Can you get a license from the Khanawake Gaming Commission or from Costa Rica and then run an internet game that is available in homes and offices in Ontario?

In part, the answer will turn on a technical question: "Where is the game taking place?" When you raise all-in at ParadisePoker.com is the game taking place on your PC in Ontario (not licensed by the Ontario authority) or is it taking place on a server in Costa Rica (duly licensed by that country). To date, as far as I know, this point has not been adjudicated by a Canadian court.

Soâ€¦ the answer is (I think) Canadian provincial regulators (and U.S.) view it as illegal gaming.

Can you get in trouble for playing it? Well, the only thing you can be charged with is "being found in a gaming house" and it is very difficult to imagine a charge of being "found in" sticking since you are, in fact, found in your own home. Can an online poker site somehow convert your home into a gaming house? Seems a HUGE and impossible stretch of logic (Thanks to Calgary lawyer Tom Buglas for his thoughts in this area which I am liberally paraphrasing).

As a final note, the whole darn thing is getting so huge that it is becoming impossible for the provincial regulators to control and I strongly suspect that the whole world is close to a giant change. And, although this forum thinks about poker, poker is not really the concern since it is sort of self-regulating. There are winning players and there are lots of avenues to give a sketchy poker site some very pad PR. Not so with an online casino. You canâ€™t beat craps. So, there is precious little to protect a customer in an online casino.