Self-Exclusion Tool Covering All Ontario Online Casinos to Launch This Year

^{Scheduled to launch midway through the year, iGaming Ontario’s responsible gambling tool will allow Ontario players to simultaneously self-exclude from all licensed online casinos in the province. (Image: The Canadian Press)} 

A self-exclusion tool that will cover all online casinos in Ontario will launch this year, allowing players in the province to restrict themselves from all licensed operators at once.

iGaming Ontario (iGO), the government-established agency that oversees Ontario’s regulated igaming market, aims to deliver the centralized responsible gambling tool by the middle of 2026.

Since launching in April 2022, the legal online gambling market in Ontario has swelled to include 48 operators with 82 brands offering online casino, poker and sports betting.

While each brand is legally required to offer a self-exclusion tool to players, these are largely operator or brand-specific, meaning users have to manually self-exclude from each different account they own.

Current self-exclusion options for Ontario players

Normally found under the “Responsible Gambling” or “Account Settings” sections at online casinos, self-exclusion tools block a specific casino’s games, services and marketing materials from being accessed by, or promoted to, players for a specified period of time.

This can range from as short as 24 hours (often known as a ‘cooling-off period’) to several months, years or even a permanent block.

Once activated, self-exclusion cannot be reversed early in most cases. 

As well as the private operator-specific tools, Ontario-based gamblers can also currently access My PlayBreak, created by OLG, to block the province’s state-owned lottery, casino and sports betting services.

My PlayBreak also prevents players from accessing any OLG-run charitable gaming centres or land-based casinos in Ontario by the use of facial recognition software.

Though technically not under the jurisdiction of iGO, which only manages private operators, all OLG-run igaming services will be included in iGO’s self-exclusion tool. 

What players can expect

Long-awaited, a centralized self-exclusion solution has long been sought after by iGO who made signing-up to any such tool a requirement for all operators who applied for an Ontario gaming license.

iGO’s new tool was built by compliance tech firm Integrity Compliance 360 and software specialist Dataworks Group (formerly IXUP), after iGO accepted their joint bid back in August 2024.

Since then, while building the tool, both companies liaised with private operators and OLG to ensure the product complied with regulatory standards set by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).

Back on December 18th, AGCO published an information bulletin which outlined the initial standards it expects for the centralized self-exclusion program.

This included clearly defined term lengths for self-exclusion, which must include six-month, one-year and five-month options, as well as ensuring players cannot bypass the tool by creating new accounts and that operators must refund outstanding wagers and balances once players have self-excluded.

Similar versions of centralized responsible gambling tools already exist in several US states.

While it’s also expected that Alberta, expected to open its own legalized iGaming market in 2026, will also require private operators to sign-up to its own version of the tool, which may be connected with Ontario’s in some form once the market matures.