Crypto casinos in Canada: how crypto payments work and who takes them

Crypto is no longer a niche payment at online casinos. Of the 42 casinos SpinsPilot covers for players outside Ontario and Alberta, 40 list cryptocurrency next to Interac® e-Transfer and cards when review sites are counted as well as the casinos' own pages. That makes the useful question not "crypto casino or regular casino" but "when is crypto the better way to pay, and what does it cost you?" This article explains how crypto payments work at these casinos, where they beat a bank transfer, the risks that come with them, and which casinos list which coins. Only 15 of the 42 show crypto on their own site; those are on our crypto casinos page.

How a crypto payment works

A bank payment passes through several middlemen: your bank, a payment processor and the casino's bank, each with its own checks, fees and business hours.

A crypto payment goes from your wallet to the casino's wallet on a blockchain. You copy the casino's deposit address, send the coins from your wallet or exchange account, and the deposit appears once the network confirms it. There is no bank in the middle, so there are no bank holidays and no bank to decline the payment.

To pay in crypto you first need coins: you buy them on a Canadian exchange or in a wallet app, with dollars, and send them on. When you win, the casino pays back in crypto, and you sell the coins on an exchange to get dollars into your bank account. Every one of those steps can carry a fee or a spread.

Why players choose crypto

• No bank decline. Several Canadian banks reserve the right to block gambling transactions on their cards. A crypto deposit does not go through the card network. Our Canadian banks page shows which banks say so.
• No bank hours. A blockchain transfer moves at night and on weekends. Once a casino approves a crypto withdrawal, the transfer itself usually takes minutes. The approval, not the network, is what takes time.
• Network fees instead of bank fees. You pay the network fee for the transfer, which depends on the coin and how busy the network is, plus the exchange's fees when you buy and sell.

What crypto does not do

It does not make you anonymous. The casinos we cover ask for ID before the first withdrawal, whatever the payment method. Some also ask you to prove the crypto wallet is yours, and complaints against two of them, Casinia and RioAce, are about exactly that. Plan for the same ID check as with Interac.

It does not always count against your deposit limit. iWild's terms say its deposit limits cannot be applied to crypto deposits. If you rely on a deposit limit to control your spending, check that it covers crypto at your casino before you deposit coins.

It does not reverse. Send coins to the wrong address or on the wrong network, and they are gone. There is no bank to call and no chargeback.

The risks

Price swings. If you deposit Bitcoin worth $1,000 and the price falls 20% while you play, your balance is worth $800 in dollars, even if you never lost a bet. It works the other way too, but you are now betting on two things at once: the game and the coin.

Stablecoins and the US dollar. USDT and USDC are pegged to the US dollar, not the Canadian dollar. They remove the crypto price swing, but your balance still moves with the exchange rate between the two dollars. 38 of the 42 casinos we cover name USDT or USDC.

Licences. Most casinos that take crypto are licensed offshore: Curaçao, Anjouan or Kahnawà:ke, for example. If a dispute goes wrong, the regulator that licensed the casino is the place to complain, not a Canadian one. Our guide is online gambling legal in Canada? explains the licences you will see.

Tax. Gambling winnings and the coins themselves are two separate tax questions. Buying, holding and selling crypto has its own tax treatment in Canada, whatever you did with the coins in between.

Provably fair games

Some crypto casinos offer "provably fair" games, usually their own crash, dice or Plinko-style games. Before each round, the casino publishes a hash of its server seed; you can add your own client seed; afterwards, you can check that the result was not changed after your bet. It proves the round was not tampered with. It does not prove the game's payout percentage is good, and it does not apply to the slots and live tables from the big game makers, which are tested by their own labs instead. Our Plinko guide shows how much the payout percentage of one game can vary.

Crypto at the casinos we cover

The table lists the coins named for each casino and whether crypto withdrawals are stated. Most lists come from review sites, which do not filter by country, so the coins shown to a Canadian account can differ. Only Spinbara's list comes from the casino's own payments page with Canada and Canadian dollars selected. Check the cashier after you sign up and before you buy coins.

Two casinos are not in the table. WinMega lists no crypto in the source we read. FS Casino contradicts itself: its homepage lists Bitcoin and Ethereum, while its terms say it does not accept cryptocurrency.

Crypto or Interac?

• Use Interac e-Transfer if you want dollars in, dollars out, with no coins to buy and sell and no exchange rate on the way. Our guide to Interac at casinos shows which casinos list it for withdrawals.
• Use crypto if your bank blocks gambling payments, if the casino pays out faster in crypto, or if you already hold coins. Prefer a stablecoin if you do not want the coin's price in play.
• Either way, the ID check before the first withdrawal is the same.

You must be 19 or older to gamble online (18 in Quebec and Manitoba). Set a deposit limit that covers every payment method you use. Free, confidential help for every province and territory we serve is on our responsible gambling page.