Online Casinos in Saskatchewan

The Legal Position

The statute we read for Saskatchewan is The Alcohol and Gaming Regulation Act, 1997, Chapter A-18.011, and we read it from the King's Printer's own PDF of the Act as captured by the Internet Archive on 30 March 2019, because the King's Printer does not currently serve us that document. Every quotation from the Act below is therefore what the Act said on that date rather than a statement of the law in force today.

On that reading, the Act defined a "lottery scheme" as "a lottery scheme conducted and managed pursuant to clause 207(1)(a) of the Criminal Code", and it gave one body a double role. It provided that "The authority is responsible for the regulation and control of" a list whose fourth entry was "lottery schemes in Saskatchewan" — and, separately, that "With the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, and in accordance with any directions that the Lieutenant Governor in Council may prescribe, the authority may conduct and manage lottery schemes for the Government of Saskatchewan …". The authority in both provisions was the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority, which on that reading both regulated lottery schemes in the province and could run them for the government. What the province's own release establishes today, independently of the capture, is narrower: that SLGA regulates PlayNow.com.

What that power did not do, on the same reading, is say who else may offer online casino games, and we are not going to fill the gap by implication. The Act's words were permissive, on that reading — the authority may conduct and manage — and the province's release calls PlayNow.com "the province's first legal, regulated online gaming platform", which is a claim about being first rather than about being alone. We found no Saskatchewan source establishing that no one else may be licensed, so we record the arrangement the province describes and do not label the market a monopoly.

Who Runs It, and Who Regulates It

Four bodies appear in one sentence of the province's own release. The site is "managed by SaskGaming, operated by the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA), regulated by the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority and utilizes the British Columbia Lottery Corporation's (BCLC) industry-leading PlayNow.com platform".

So SIGA is the operator, which matters because "the province runs it" would be the wrong summary. SaskGaming manages the site, SIGA operates it, the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority regulates it, and BCLC supplies the platform rather than the market. SaskGaming is the Saskatchewan Gaming Corporation, which the Act defined as the corporation "established pursuant to The Saskatchewan Gaming Corporation Act". The Act defined SIGA too, and that definition was about operating — an organisation that "has entered into an agreement with the authority to operate casinos in Saskatchewan" — though on its own words it was about casinos in the province, and it predates PlayNow.com.

The province put the partnership behind it on the record as well. The Minister Responsible for SaskGaming, Don Morgan, is quoted saying Saskatchewan "announced a historic partnership to establish the province's first legal, regulated online gaming platform in partnership with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) and SIGA", and FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron called it "the first of its kind, with a First Nations operator for online gaming with revenue sharing between First Nations and the Province". SIGA's own President and CEO, Zane Hansen, said that "Similar to the existing brick-and-mortar casinos in the province, all net proceeds from the PlayNow.com site are reinvested back into Saskatchewan."

What Is Available to a Player in Saskatchewan

PlayNow.com is the site the province launched, and the release is specific about what arrived. It announced that "The province's first legal, regulated online gaming platform is now live" and that "PlayNow.com launched this morning", dated 3 November 2022, and described the site as carrying "over 500 casino games". SaskGaming's President and CEO, Susan Flett, framed what it was for in the province's own words: it "will provide a legal, regulated alternative to grey market and illegal gambling sites currently operating in the province".

We list no operator of our own here, because we list an operator only where our own records place one in a market.

The responsible-gambling tooling is named in the release rather than left general. The release says the site "features the GameSense responsible gambling program", described there as supporting "a robust and controlled responsible gambling environment, with features such as pop-up reminders of time and money spent, problem gambling referral information, play breaks and self-exclusions", and the release records that "GameSense Advisors are also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week via live chat to support safer play online."

Age and Getting Help

The province gives the age as 19, and two of its own publications put the number there. The launch release describes the site's offerings as being for "Saskatchewan players aged 19 years and older". The Act reached the same figure from the other direction: its definition section provided that "minor" means "a person who is under 19 years of age", as the Act read at the 2019 capture above.

What we cannot point you to is a provision barring a minor from taking part. The Act did not do it itself, on the reading above; it took the power to make regulations doing it, including "prohibiting classes of individuals from participating in lottery schemes or from being in any place where lottery schemes or any class of lottery schemes are being conducted", and we have not read those regulations. So treat 19 as the age the province publishes for PlayNow.com and the age its statute used for a minor, rather than as a section number we have checked.

On help, Saskatchewan publishes a line of its own and says what it is for. The province's Problem Gambling Directory of Services tells a reader to "Call the Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-306-6789 and learn about counselling services available across the province", and describes the Saskatchewan Problem Gambling Helpline as "a 24-hour helpline" whose callers "receive confidential, professional service from trained counsellors, free of charge". The same page adds a text route: "Texting options are available at 306-400-2785 seven days a week from 12:30 to 17:30."