Self-Exclusion in Canada: The Two Gaps to Know About

How it works where you live

Self-exclusion is a formal agreement that you will be refused service, and every province runs one through its lottery and gaming corporation. It is free, and it is taken seriously.

• British Columbia: BCLC, for six months, one year, two years or three years. Enrol in person at a casino or community gaming centre, by calling 1-866-815-0222 and choosing option 3 to reach a GameSense Advisor, or online under Take a Game Break in PlayNow or the Lotto! app.
• Quebec: Loto-Québec, online in Manage My Gambling, by phone on 1-866-611-5686, or in person. A counsellor follows up by phone roughly two weeks later.
• Manitoba: through Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, whose PlayNow service runs in partnership with BCLC.
• Saskatchewan: through SIGA, which has run PlayNow Saskatchewan with BCLC since 2022.
• Atlantic Canada: the Atlantic Lottery Corporation scheme, covering all four Atlantic provinces.

Gap one: it stops at the provincial border

A registration applies to the scheme you signed with, and to nothing else. Self-exclude with BCLC and then move to Saskatchewan, and you start from zero — the new province has no record of it.

That is not an oversight. Each scheme is run by a separate corporation under separate provincial authority, and there is no national register tying them together. If you move, or if you spend real time in another province, you have to register again there.

Gap two: it does not reach offshore sites

This is the more important one, and it is the reason people conclude self-exclusion does not work when in fact it worked exactly as designed.

A provincial scheme can only bind the operators that province conducts or licenses. A site licensed in Curaçao or anywhere else outside Canada is not one of them and never sees your registration. You can be fully excluded from your provincial site and still be able to open an account offshore ten minutes later.

If offshore sites are part of what you are trying to stop, provincial self-exclusion on its own will not do it.

The layers that do cover the gaps

Because both gaps are real, self-exclusion is worth stacking with blocks that work at a level no operator controls.

• A bank or card block. Several Canadian banks and card issuers can refuse gambling transactions at the card level, which applies to every site rather than to a list of them.
• Blocking software on your phone and computer, which works at the device.
• Removing saved cards from browsers and wallets. It sounds minor and it removes a surprising amount of momentum.
• Registering with more than one provincial scheme if you split your time between provinces.

Where to get support

Every province we cover runs a free confidential line, open around the clock and independent of every operator, including the ones we link to. The numbers are at the foot of every page on this site. The Responsible Gambling Council also keeps a national directory.