The federal Criminal Code establishes the legal framework for gambling in Canada.
The Code includes a general prohibition against all forms of gambling, and also provides for a number of specific exemptions to that prohibition, including the authority for provincial governments to “conduct & manage” gambling.
The term “conduct & manage”– operative phrase in the Code – has come to be interpreted as acting as the operating mind.
Across the country, Canadian provincial governments have delegated the authority to conduct & manage gambling to Crown agencies – provincial lottery corporations.
There are similarities in the interpretation of conduct & manage from province to province, but there is no consensus among the provinces of what the legal interpretation of conduct & manage means.
Each province has created its own unique regulatory and operating structures to reflect their individual interpretations.
The point is that while “conduct & mange” is the law, how it is interpreted is not black and white. What one province believes it means can be (and is) different from another, and this has specific implications for online gaming. To that point, there is nothing in the Criminal Code that prevents a province from regulating online gaming instead of operating.
