Free confidential gambling help across Canada: warning signs, provincial lines, self-exclusion and family support.
Gambling is entertainment you pay for, like a concert ticket. If it has turned into a way to make money, to escape stress, or to win back what you have lost, it is no longer that. This happens to ordinary people, it is not a moral failure, and help costs nothing.
One of these deserves attention. Several together deserve a phone call.
You do not need to be in crisis, and you do not need to give your name.
Deposit limits — set them when you open the account, while you are calm. Every reputable operator provides them.
Loss and session limits — cap what a period can cost you and how long a sitting lasts.
Reality checks — a periodic reminder of elapsed time. Dull and genuinely effective.
Time-out — a break from a day to several weeks, usually applied immediately.
Self-exclusion — a longer ban that cannot be lifted on impulse. Loto-Québec operates its own scheme, as do the other provincial platforms, and licensed operators are required to offer one.
An important limitation: the offshore operators listed on this site take part in no Canadian self-exclusion scheme. Excluding yourself from Loto-Québec will not block them. If you are self-excluding, device-level blocking software such as Gamban or BetBlocker covers what a provincial scheme cannot.
Living with another person's gambling is exhausting, and it is frequently hidden. Gam-Anon and every provincial line listed above will speak with family members directly. You may call about somebody else's gambling, and you do not need their consent to ask for advice.
This site writes about casinos and earns commission when readers open accounts, so please take this in the spirit it is meant: nothing on this page is worth your rent money. If how quickly a casino pays has started to matter because you need the money, that is the moment to stop reading and call one of the numbers above.