Promoting healthy play and ensuring that gambling remains fun and for entertainment is a core value at Atlantic Lottery. The company was created nearly 50 years ago by the four Atlantic provincial governments to provide responsible, regulated games to Atlantic Canadians while returning 100 percent of profit back to the region.
Now, in this increasingly digital world, there are countless online gambling options available at the click of a mouse or the tap of your finger. However, Atlantic Lottery remains the only provider that is legal and government-regulated in the Atlantic provinces.
With the number of illegal gambling sites constantly on the rise, Atlantic Lottery believes that it’s more important than ever for players to understand the facts about the games they’re playing so that they can make informed decisions about their play.
Around $170 million leaves Atlantic Canada every year due to play on illegal gambling websites when this money could otherwise be staying right here in our region to fund public services. This is a significant amount of money that leaves our provinces and is taken to benefit offshore operators. Illegal gambling websites are not accountable to provincial or federal regulators, do not share profit or pay taxes locally and do not fund important government programs and services in our region. Atlantic Lottery, on the other hand, checks all of those boxes.
As the region’s only legal and government-regulated provider of lottery, online gambling, and sports betting, Atlantic Lottery takes social responsibility seriously. When it comes to reinvesting in our communities, 100 percent of their profits have always been returned to the region to help fund social services and programs that leave a lasting impact. In other words: what’s played here, stays here.
Atlantic Lottery has also been recognized by both the World Lottery Association and Responsible Gambling Council for offering the highest level of responsible gambling features and resources to their players. Where illegal websites may not offer the same commitment to responsible gambling or have healthy play tools that are not prominently featured, Atlantic Lottery regularly consults with gambling experts to make responsibility a key consideration in every game, program and advertisement they launch.
With the company’s long standing PlayWise healthy play program, a collection of tips and tools to help players make informed decisions, Atlantic Lottery has educated players on how the games work so that they can understand the odds that they’re playing, find tips for playing responsibly, and access features to set their personal limits. Within these features, players can set their own personal weekly deposit limit, wager limit, session time limit, and more. Why include these tools? Well, because Atlantic Lottery believes that when people play responsibly, everybody wins.
Since online games are already played by Atlantic Canadians, having a regulated alternative provides these players with extra protection and the tools to keep their gambling responsible, while also keeping these funds in our region. By shifting some of the existing player base from these offshore sites back to play on alc.ca, Atlantic Lottery aims to take care of their online gambling community through a more accountable environment, all while providing the best experience possible.
This content has been developed and paid for by Atlantic Lottery without involvement from The Coast’s editorial department.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2023.