It is said, sometimes only half in jest, that there is a 3,000-mile glass wall along the massive Canada-United States border, and that when Canadians look at it they view Americans. Americans look at it and see their own reflection.Maybe so in many issues, but when ites to online gambling, Canadian players and the Canadian government hardly see things eye to eye with their American counterparts. While the U.S. Department of Justice is spending millions of dollars and countless man-hours in an effort to deny Americans the right to gamble online, Canadian officials just shrug their shoulders and wonder what the big deal is.“The government has never given anyone grief for playing online,” Paul Burns, vice president of the Canadian Gambling Association, told Covers. Burns noted that Canadian poker players fared particularly well at this year World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, perhaps as a result of training they received playing online. “I guess those long, cold winter nights (playing poker) online are paying off,” joked Burns.Playing online apparently helped Jonathan Duhamel, who became an immediate legend in Canadian poker circles. The native of Quebec became the first person from his country to win the World Series of Poker last year. Duhamel had played poker online, following in the footsteps of fellow Canadian and TV poker star Daniel Negreanu of Ontario. Duhamel grew bored with his 9-to-5 job, hit the poker circuit and a few years later was cashing an $8.9-million check (or cheque in Canada) after winning the WSOP. Unfettered online play has no doubt made it easier for Canadians to hone their skills and at least attempt to make a living at poker. In fact, only the United States had more entrants in this year’s WSOP than Canada. Is gambling online legal in Canada? Yes. No. Somewhere in the middle.This much is known: In 2010, the Canadian government’s take from legal online gambling (government-run lotteries, video terminals and bricks-and-mortar casinos) was 400 percent higher than it was in 2000. Canadians reportedly spent $11.3 billion in legal gambling last year. How much more was wagered in the semi-legal world of betting via offshore sites is impossible to discern. Unlike in the States, where the government is moving to shut down offshore sites that takes wagers from Americans, and England, where the government is moving to bring online sites onto British soil for tax purposes, Canada is pretty much content to let the status remain quo.Each province is free to call its own shots regarding online gambling, and each seems to take a different approach – casinos, bingo halls, slot machines. One of the few lawmakers interested in dealing with online wagering is Ontario’s Joe Cromartin, who represents the Windsor area in Parliament and has been vocal about allowing sports wagering in casinos in an effort to stem online sports wagering among Canadians. “(Allowing sports betting at casinos) would make it far less attractive to gamble illegally at off-shore sites,” Cromartin said in a recent interview with Covers. “It’s been estimated that $15 billion a year is wagered illegally by North Americans. There is no reason that Canadian casinos and the Canadian taxpayer would not benefit by making sports wagering safe and legal.”But for those who do prefer to gamble online, the Canadian government, which actually strengthened its penalties for those who break gambling laws (whatever they may be), seems to have more important things than deal with people who use theirputers to place wagers.Despite apparent efforts by the Canadian government to steer clear of the U.S.’s crackdown on online gambling, Canada has had several connections with the Black Friday and Blue Monday indictments. Absolute Poker, which was one of three sites shut down on April 15, had itsputer servers at the Indian-run Kahnawake Gamingmission outside Montreal. And several principals who were indicted were either Canadians or were in Canada when the indictments came down.There appears to be no appetite in Canada for a U.S.-type crackdown on offshore gambling sites, so for the immediate future, it looks like the coast is clear for online wagering in the Great White North.
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