Sweepstake casinos are currently all the rage in countries where gambling legislation is a little bit stricter, such as the United States.
However, a lot of people see the merit in them, even in countries where gambling laws are more relaxed, such as Canada. This does beg the question: ‘Will sweepstake casinos ever come to Canada?’.
Below, we take a look at the current situation.
What is a sweepstake casino?
Sweepstake casinos take many different forms.
The general idea of a sweepstake casino is that you use your cash to buy in-game tokens, although you can also ‘earn’ tokens in a variety of ways to play for free. You then gamble with these in-game tokens.
At many sweepstake casinos, you can trade these tokens for in-game rewards. In some cases, you can trade your in-game tokens for cash prizes.
Other than this, they are not that functionally different from a traditional online casino. You’re just not gambling directly with your own cash.
As you can probably imagine, the whole idea of a sweepstake casino was devised to get around anti-gambling legislation. Online companies figured that if people weren’t gambling with real money but tokens instead, then it wasn’t strictly gambling.
For the most part, sweepstake casinos do get around gambling legislation, at least in many parts of the United States. Some parts of the US have explicitly outlawed sweepstake casinos, while others have laws that are broad enough to ban them. Despite this, sweepstake casinos are still popular in many parts of the US, even in regions where new gambling laws have started to be introduced.
Bear in mind that no matter where you are, sweepstake casinos are still akin to gambling, with some even offering betting on sports and events like the NHL draft. This means that you won’t be able to gamble at a sweepstake casino if you’re under the minimum age. In most parts of Canada, the minimum age is either 18 or 21.
Of course, we’re not here to talk to you about the US and their gambling laws. We’re here to talk to you about Canada and the situation with sweepstake casinos in this country.
Sweepstake casinos are already here
You may be surprised to know that some sweepstake casinos have already launched in Canada. They’re not advertised heavily, but they are here. You may just find them listed as social casinos rather than sweepstake casinos, but they’re the same thing.
One of the most popular is Ontario-based Zulu Casino, which has recently launched to Canadian customers, although it has been around in the US for a while. Zulu Casino markets itself as a social casino. You can earn free tokens or buy tokens on the platform, and play a variety of games. If you win, you can redeem your tokens for a cash prize.
There are a few limitations in place, including the amount that you can redeem per day and the number of times you need to play through your tokens, before you can redeem your tokens for a prize. However, the platform is functionally similar to any other online casino that you may have played at in Canada. You’re just gambling with tokens rather than directly with cash.
This is one of only a few sweepstake casinos in Canada. As we’ll talk about soon, they’re unlikely to get much more popular than they already are.
Why would a Canadian want to play at a sweepstake casino?
Now, we know what you’re thinking. If online casinos are legally allowed in Canada (and yes, you can gamble at an online casino anywhere in Canada), why would somebody want to play at a sweepstakes casino? Well, one reason is value for money.
Sweepstakes casinos often allow you to get more casino plays from the money that you spend. While the rewards will be slightly lower, most people are not really going to be playing at a sweepstakes casino in the hope of winning big. They’re playing at a sweepstakes casino because they want to have a bit of fun.
A lot of sweepstakes casinos have lower minimum purchase requirements than the minimum deposits at real online casinos too, which does make the games a lot more accessible. This means people can have fun for a lot less money than they normally would.
The casino games are not too different from their retail counterparts either. In fact, you’ll quickly notice that many of the games available on sweepstake platforms are exactly the same as you would find at your average online casino in Canada, which is awesome. This means that you get to play some incredibly fun games without spending a huge amount of money to play them. Some people love this.
Finally, it is worth noting that while online gambling isn’t strictly illegal anywhere in Canada, there are some places where you gamble at your own risk as you’ll be gambling at casinos located outside of the country. Most people don’t want to deal with this sort of thing, and they prefer to gamble with Canadian businesses. In some cases, gambling at a sweepstake casino makes this possible.
Why sweepstake casinos are unlikely to gain more popularity in Canada
To date, we’ve seen very few sweepstake casinos launch in Canada, and we doubt they’re ever going to have the traction that they have managed to have in the US. This is due to the laws that govern gambling in Canada.
In Canada, we have some pretty decent gambling laws. In most provinces, it is 100 per cent legal to gamble online. In fact, most provinces have licensing bodies in place to help protect their gamblers. In the provinces where online gambling is strictly forbidden, federal law protects the gambler. Even if no gambling company can legally operate within the province, the law does not forbid online gambling at an international platform. Although, it is worth noting that the gambler won’t be protected if something does go wrong.
This means that there has been no overarching push for sweepstake casinos. Sweepstake casinos were born out of the need to have somewhere people could gamble at legally when gambling legislation prevents actual casinos from operating.
Despite this, we wouldn’t rule out more sweepstake casinos appearing in Canada or seeing platforms like Zulu Casino become more popular in the country. There are legitimate reasons why somebody would want to play at a sweepstake casino rather than a standard casino, so there’ll always be some people interested in playing at a sweepstake casino rather than the average online casino.
Final thoughts
Sweepstake casinos haven’t quite taken off in Canada in the same way that they have in the United States. This is all thanks to the slightly better gambling legislation that we have here. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a demand for sweepstake casinos, and some sites such as Zulu Casino are fulfilling that need.
While it is unlikely that we will have tons of sweepstake casinos operating within Canada, we will continue to have the few that we do have operating here, and we expect that they will continue to grow as more people seek out sweepstake casinos.
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