Online gambling for Painted Hand readers

Saskatchewan's sole legal online gambling site is PlayNow.com. SIGA operates it, the same body that runs Painted Hand Casino on Broadway Street West. Players must be 19 or older. That age matches the provincial gambling age, and anyone under 19 at a SIGA casino is treated as a prohibited individual and cannot collect winnings. The cut-off at 19 is identical online and at the casino door.

Private online casinos cannot get a licence in Saskatchewan, so none of them operates under one here. The provincial government goes further and calls the sites that compete with PlayNow illegal platforms. Oversight in the province sits with two bodies. Lotteries and Gaming Saskatchewan, a Crown corporation, oversees lotteries and gaming, and the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority is the regulator.

Game Break, run by Casino Regina and Casino Moose Jaw, keeps a person out of every casino in Saskatchewan and off PlayNow.com. A term of anywhere between 6 months and 5 years applies. After it comes into effect, nobody can shorten or lift it.

SIGA Voluntary Self-Exclusion covers all nine casinos in the province, for a term of 6 months to 5 years. It is arranged at any SIGA casino, Painted Hand included, or by appointment at SIGA's Central Office, 103 Aspen Place, Saskatoon. Nobody can arrange it for someone else. Neither programme reaches a private online site.

Paid links appear on the home page of Tessera and nowhere else, each tagged Ad. There are three: the button in the menu, a strip under the opening tool and a box near the end. All three lead to one private online casino business, unnamed here, which pays Tessera a commission. That business can be replaced.

It holds no Saskatchewan licence. It has no connection with Painted Hand Casino, SIGA, PlayNow.com or any agency of the province. Self-exclusion through SIGA or Game Break does not apply on it.