The House Check
Safety

Player protection in Ontario, and how to use it

Province-wide support and self-exclusion, what operators are required to give you, and the lookalike domain to watch for.

Updated 24 September 2026

Ontario runs support and self-exclusion at province level, independent of any operator and of this site. Both services below are free and confidential.

ConnexOntario

1-866-531-2600, free and confidential, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You can also text CONNEX to 247247. It is named directly in the Registrar's Standards as the service operators must signpost, and it handles referral as well as immediate support.

BetGuard

Ontario's centralized self-exclusion programme, administered by iGaming Ontario and launched in May 2026. A single sign-up covers the province's registered online gambling sites, rather than requiring you to exclude yourself site by site. Available terms are six months, one year, five years or a custom period.

The address is betguard.ca and nothing else. Hyphenated lookalike domains using the BetGuard name exist and can surface in search results beside the real one — BetGuard's own site carries a warning about impostors. If the address does not match exactly, do not enter personal details into it. We will not link the lookalikes here.

What the operator must provide

Registered Ontario operators are required to offer limit-setting and self-exclusion controls inside your account. In general, a limit that reduces your exposure takes effect sooner than one that increases it — that asymmetry is deliberate and it is on your side.

We could not verify which of these controls exist on this operator's Ontario product specifically, where each sits in the account, or how quickly each takes effect. If you have an account, ask live chat where the limit and take-a-break settings are, and set them before you need them.

The arithmetic

Every game in the library carries a built-in advantage for the house. It is not hidden and it is not a scandal — it is how the business works. But it means that over enough time the mathematics only runs one way, and no system, pattern or run of luck changes it. Gambling is an entertainment expense. It is not income, and it is not a way to recover money already lost.

Check the address

Lookalike domains imitating BetGuard exist and can appear in search results beside the official one. The address is betguard.ca — no hyphens, no .com variant.

Keep reading

Full review →
Licensing Is Jackpot City legal in Ontario? Yes — and unusually for this question, you can check it yourself in about two minutes. Here is the registration, where to verify it, and the one detail in the regulator's own record that does not add up. Read Games What is actually in the game library Slots, RNG tables, live dealer and video bingo — and four named suppliers that almost certainly are not the whole list. What we could verify, and what we refuse to repeat from other review sites. Read Banking Payments and withdrawals: where the evidence runs out The section where review sites are usually weakest and where the detail actually costs people money. It is also where our evidence is thinnest, and we would rather say so than round it up. Read