Editorial standards
How we rank Ontario online casinos
Trust is the entire product here. This page documents exactly where our data comes from, how we check it, how we score operators, who is responsible, where we use AI assistance — and what we do not do — so you can judge our work the same way we judge casinos.
Who we are and why we built this
Ontario Casino Index is an independent reference site, not a casino. We don't take bets, hold player funds or operate games. We exist because the search results for "Ontario online casino" and "Interac casino Canada" are crowded with pages that do two things badly: they mix legal Ontario operators with offshore brands that aren't allowed to serve Ontarians, and they quote marketing "instant payout" claims while ignoring the review windows that decide how long you actually wait.
Who this is for: adults (19+) in Ontario choosing between regulated casinos. How we help: a mirror of the official licence directory plus a payout tracker built from each operator's published cashier terms. Why you should trust it: every claim on this site is traceable to a primary source, and we tell you when something is uncertain instead of inventing a number.
Our data sources
We work from primary, public records and the operators' own published terms — never from rumour or from each other's affiliate pages.
| What we record | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Legal status / licence | The official iGaming Ontario directory, cross-checked against the AGCO "List of Registered Internet Gaming Operators". |
| Registered entity & status | AGCO registration records and the iGO directory (active vs delisted). |
| Payments, limits, payout SLAs | Each operator's own banking/help pages, cashier terms and general terms and conditions, read as written and re-read whenever they change. |
| Game counts & providers | Operator-reported figures (we round and label them as reported). |
| Advertising & RG rules | AGCO Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming, AGCO enforcement notices, and iGO / OLG responsible-gambling resources. |
As of our last review there were roughly 44 operators running about 78 gaming sites on the iGO directory (as of June 8, 2026). Because that list churns — brands launch, delist, or transition, such as the PointsBet-to-Betr change — we re-check it on at least a monthly cadence and stamp every record with a last verified date.
How we check payout speed
This is where we differ most from thin competitors. A casino's advertised Interac SLA (for example, "under 60 minutes") is only half the story. Before that clock starts, most operators run a Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and internal review — and on a first withdrawal that can take days. So we read each operator's cashier terms, withdrawal policy and KYC pages and record two numbers for every casino:
- Published Interac SLA — the operator's stated processing time once a withdrawal is approved.
- Review window — the KYC/internal-review time the operator itself discloses before approval, especially on a first cash-out. BetMGM, for instance, states 3–5 business days here.
Our tracker then shows realistic time to cash = review window + SLA, and sorts by that by default. It's why BetMGM ranks slower than its 8-hour headline implies, and why PlayOJO and Caesars — fast SLA and same-day review for verified players — sit near the top. Every figure in the tracker is the operator's own published number, taken from its cashier terms, help centre or withdrawal policy, and each row carries the date we last read those terms. We do not fund accounts or time withdrawals ourselves. All speeds vary by verification status, first-versus-repeat withdrawal and amount.
What we do not do
We do not open funded player accounts, deposit our own money, time withdrawals, or run scripted "test" conversations with support teams. We do not install every app on a rack of phones and benchmark it. Where a page states a payout time, a review window, a fee or a limit, it is the operator's own published figure or an AGCO/iGO record, and it is attributed as such. Where a page describes an app or mobile site, it is based on the operator's published feature list and public app-store listings and ratings. Reports from readers are treated as anecdotes, never presented as our own measurements. If a claim cannot be traced to the iGO directory, an AGCO record, the operator's published terms or a dated third-party report, it does not appear on this site as fact.
Scoring weights
Each operator earns a rating out of 5, built from weighted pillars. We weight payout reality and licensing transparency most heavily because, in a market where bonuses can't be advertised, those are what genuinely separate operators.
| Pillar | Weight |
|---|---|
| Published payout terms & withdrawal limits (review window + SLA, Interac focus) | 30% |
| Licensing, safety & transparency (iGO status, RG tooling) | 25% |
| Game range & provider quality | 20% |
| Payments breadth, fees & minimums | 15% |
| Mobile offering & usability (app availability, public app-store ratings, site structure) | 10% |
A casino cannot rank at all unless it passes the binary gate first: it must be on the iGO directory (or be OLG, the government operator). Offshore brands are never ranked — they're flagged.
How we handle bonuses (legally)
Ontario prohibits public advertising of bonuses, free spins, credits or any gambling inducement. AGCO Standard 2.06 requires that any inducement's material conditions be disclosed at first presentation, with the rest one click away — and operators are liable for what their affiliates publish. Two enforcement actions make the stakes clear: BetMGM was fined C$110,000 (penalty issued March 2025 for 2024 inducement marketing) for inducement marketing via affiliates and a trade-show offer, and Casino Days was fined C$54,000 in 2025 for a deceptive, high-wagering bonus.
So our policy is simple: we describe offers editorially and factually ("on-site only after sign-up"), we never render a bonus call-to-action, and we link to the operator's own page for terms. We are not the inducement channel. This protects you and the operators, and it's why our pages look calmer than Curaçao-market affiliate sites. Full explainer →
Independence and how we make money
We may earn a commission when a reader signs up with an operator through some of our links. Those links are marked and use rel="sponsored nofollow". Commercial relationships never change a rating, a rank or a verdict — our scoring is mechanical and documented above, and we'll rank a partner below a non-partner without hesitation when the data says so. We also flag every operator that is not legal in Ontario, even though we could never earn from them, because that legal clarity is the whole point of the site.
AI-assistance disclosure
We believe in transparency about how content is produced. We use AI tools to assist with drafting, summarising source material, structuring data and checking consistency across pages. Every page is then reviewed, fact-checked against the primary sources above, and edited by a human before publication. AI is a research and drafting aid here — it does not set ratings, invent statistics or have the final word. Where a figure could not be verified against a primary source, we omit it rather than let a model guess.
Freshness and corrections
Licence status is re-checked at least monthly against the iGO directory; payout and payment details are re-read from the operators' published terms on a rolling basis and whenever an operator changes them. Each record carries a last-verified date (currently June 8, 2026 for operator data). Spotted something out of date or wrong? We want to know — corrections strengthen the index. Reach us via the about page.