Ontario Owns All 30 of Its Casinos and Runs None of Them. Here Is Who Does, and Which Are Worth the Border.
The province's lottery corporation took in $3.75 billion from casino gaming last year and paid $1.78 billion of it to the five private companies that actually run the floors. What that structure means for the player, which casinos matter outside Niagara, and the tax point American visitors get wrong.
Published 2026-11-02.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's financial statements for the year to March 2026 record $3.748 billion in casino gaming proceeds, and $1.775 billion of that paid out as fees to service providers. That is the whole structure of Ontario gambling in two numbers: the province "conducts and manages" every casino, and private companies run them for a cut.
Five companies hold those contracts. Great Canadian Entertainment has Toronto and the east. Gateway has the southwest, the north and Casino Rama. Mohegan has the two Niagara casinos. Caesars has Windsor, where the old operating agreement ended on March 3, 2026 and the company carried on as a service provider, the last casino in the province to move to the model. Hard Rock has Ottawa. Thirty casinos, one owner, five operators, five loyalty cards.
Toronto has a real resort casino now: Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto at Woodbine, 400 rooms and a 5,000-seat theatre, 18 miles from Union Station. Casino Rama, 88 miles north, is the First Nations resort with 292 renovated suites and the other 5,000-seat hall. Caesars Windsor is two miles from downtown Detroit through the tunnel and the only place in Canada that earns Caesars Rewards. Hard Rock Ottawa opened its 150-room hotel and concert hall out of the old Rideau Carleton raceway. Everyone is 19 or older, every floor is smoke-free by provincial law, every payout is in Canadian dollars, and Canada does not tax your win, though the IRS still expects to hear about it.
How the bundles work, and what they mean for you
Under what OLG calls its modernization model, the corporation handed the running of its casinos to private operators in regional bundles while keeping ownership of the gaming itself. Its 2024-25 annual report counts 29 facilities under that model plus Windsor, and credits the operators with about $2.9 billion of private investment since 2017, including a $1 billion Toronto resort that celebrated its grand opening in May 2024. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario regulates the lot, and since April 2022 a separate agency, iGaming Ontario, has run a legal online market that took $82.7 billion in wagers from 49 operators in its third year.
For a visitor the structure produces three rules that hold everywhere. The gambling age is 19 for casinos, not 18 as for lottery tickets. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act bans smoking and vaping in any enclosed public place, so there is no smoking section anywhere, not even a lounge. And the Canada Revenue Agency does not tax gambling windfalls; its own guidance says lottery winnings are not reported unless they amount to employment income.
What the structure does not produce is one loyalty program. Great Canadian Rewards, Gateway's My Club Rewards, Mohegan's Momentum, Caesars Rewards and Hard Rock's Unity do not talk to one another, and points earned at Rama are useless at Woodbine, 70 miles away. Pick the operator whose footprint matches your travel, which for most people is a choice between Great Canadian and Gateway.
Toronto and the east: Great Canadian
East along the 401, Pickering Casino Resort, 27 miles from Union Station, has a 275-room hotel tower and a 2,500-person arena. Casino Ajax, a few exits on, is still open 24 hours with about 500 slots. Great Blue Heron on Scugog Island near Port Perry, 59 miles out, has a hotel and more than 500 games. Further east the Shorelines casinos cover Belleville, Peterborough, Gananoque (Thousand Islands, on the river across from New York) and a slots-only room at Kawartha Downs. West of the city the Elements casinos at Brantford, Flamboro, Mohawk and Grand River are mid-sized rooms, several of them at harness tracks. All of it earns Great Canadian Rewards.
One caution for late 2026: in early October Great Canadian's own update page described a labour disruption at its four Toronto-area casinos, with the properties open behind picket lines and some amenities, including Pickering's poker room and hotel pool, closed. Check that page before booking a GTA weekend.
Rama and the Gateway country
Gateway's other Ontario casinos are small and spread wide. The one to update your map for is London. Gateway announced in 2023 that it would stay at the Western Fair District on King Street rather than build new, spent more than $50 million over a 27-month phased renovation, and relaunched the property as Cascades Casino London on June 23, 2026, with 755 slots and electronic tables listed and what it calls Ontario's first PROLINE+ sportsbook lounge. Our listing still carries the old Gateway name for it.
The rest: Starlight Casino Point Edward by the Blue Water Bridge to Michigan and a 150-slot room in Sarnia itself; Cascades Chatham with live tables; Woodstock with 285 slots; Playtime Wasaga Beach and Hanover; Innisfil south of Barrie; and in the north, Sudbury, which added six live tables on August 25, 2026, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Cascades North Bay. None of these is a trip on its own. They are where you stop.
The border casinos
Niagara has its own post. The short version: Fallsview has more than 3,000 slots and 100 tables and the 5,000-seat OLG Stage, Casino Niagara has about 1,300 slots, 30 tables and a poker room, both are run by Mohegan on its Momentum card, and Fallsview is 21 road miles from downtown Buffalo and 80 from Toronto. Our listings still show an OLG Rewards program for both; that program predates Mohegan and the card today is Momentum.
Ottawa
For years the capital's casino was a slot hall at a harness track, Rideau Carleton Raceway, on Albion Road. OLG's annual report describes a $350 million redevelopment of it with a grand opening expected in fiscal 2025-26, and the result is now open as Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Ottawa: 150 rooms including 22 suites, a Hard Rock Live hall with flexible seating for up to 1,900 and a capacity of 2,200, more than 1,500 slots, live and electronic tables, a 24-hour floor and the Unity card that also works at Hard Rock Atlantic City and the Seminole casinos in Florida. It is 11 road miles from Parliament Hill. The site's image files still say Rideau Carleton, which tells you how recent the change is.
Where the usual advice is wrong
The usual advice to American visitors comes in two halves, and both need fixing.
The first is "Fallsview or nothing." Fallsview is a fine casino with the best view in the business, and for a Buffalo day trip it is correct. But a Toronto visitor now has a 400-room resort inside the city limits, and a Toronto weekender has Rama's 292 suites and a hall the same size as Fallsview's. For anyone whose status lives with Caesars, Windsor is the only Canadian casino that earns it, and it is a two-mile tunnel ride from an American downtown. Niagara is the famous answer, not the only one. Our border casinos post covers the same logic on other crossings.
The second is "winnings are tax-free in Canada, so play there." Half true. Canada does not tax them. The Internal Revenue Service says gambling winnings are fully taxable and must be reported, and that U.S. citizens are taxed on worldwide income, so a jackpot in Windsor is a line on your 1040 whether or not anyone hands you a form. No form arrives in the mail, which is a convenience, not an exemption. Our tax guide covers how to document it. What is true is the currency: statements, payouts and prices are in Canadian dollars, and Caesars Windsor footnotes its U.S. prices with the exchange rate on a given day, so the number on your voucher is not the number in your bank account.
If gambling has stopped being something you decide the cost of in advance, ConnexOntario is at 1-866-531-2600, around the clock; in the U.S., 1-800-GAMBLER.
Topics
- ontario
- canada
- toronto
- windsor
- olg
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