A virtual tour of Canadian gambling opportunities in 2020.
Your degree of interest in this information will be directly related to your age. The younger you are, the more common place today’s digital technology will seem to you. The older you are, the more amazing you’ll find the multifarious ways in which Canadians can partake in gaming. And when I say gaming, I don’t mean video games. I mean real gambling games. Casino games, poker games, even bingo games – the kind of stuff you can win and lose money on.
Prior to the introduction of the information highway, known colloquially as the world wide web, gaming was something you did as a way to pass an evening. You got together with a friend or two, went to the local gaming hall, and spent your entertainment dollars on fun games of chance. Now, it’s something anyone of legal age can do, any time they want to do it, and for any amount of money they can afford.
Virtual Tour of Canadian Gambling Opportunities in 2020
The gaming ways of old haven’t left us, but there are many new ways to gamble in today’s technological age. Here are some of the most popular options among modern society.
Land-Based Gaming
This is still the most popular version of all – land-based gambling at bricks-and-mortar facilities. These properties come in all shapes and sizes. You have your mega-resort casinos, like the Niagara Casino and Fallsview Casino in southern Ontario, and the Casino de Montreal of Quebec. Then you have your smaller operations, where a few slot machines line the walls, and you may or may not find a couple of blackjack tables in the back. Bingo halls still exist too, attracting the nation’s seniors more than anything, but they turn out in droves for the weekends, when bigger jackpots are up for grabs.
Social Gaming
Social gaming apps are taking the world by storm, and they have been since the first touch-screen smartphones came along in 2007. They’re not exactly “gambling”, but you can lose money on them. The word “social” is practically interchangeable with the word “free”. These games can be played by anyone, of any age, without putting any real money on the virtual table. In fact, even if you do spend real money to buy gaming chips (which the makers of these “free” games highly encourage), you can’t possibly win real money for doing so. Whether it’s free-to-play slot machines, table games, poker, bingo, you name it, social gaming apps are for entertainment purposes only.
Online Gambling
This is the biggest one in today’s modern age. Online gambling gives Canadians of adult age the opportunity to partake in every form of wagering known to man, without having to visit any bricks-and-mortar gaming establishments. There are online casinos featuring hundreds if not thousands of slot machines, blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps, video poker, keno, big money wheel, sic bo, etc. Online poker rooms allow players to compete against one another, just as they would in a live setting, except that they can come together from almost anywhere on the face of the planet.
The internet has afforded us more opportunities than ever before. We have access to special promotions that get better and better as iGaming operators are forced to compete for the business of a global clientele. From our home desktop, or from anywhere our travels may take us on a mobile device, we can play these games anytime we want. And unlike social gaming, we have the choice whether to play with real money or for free.
