Canada and the USA have historically always competed against each other about a lot of things, among others about having the best casinos offering the best bonuses, the most trustworthy payments and the quickest payouts. When it comes to casinos, there are many great online casinos in Canada and the USA, but there are also differences between the two and the way the casino history has developed through time. In this article we will try to describe the tribal casinos of the two countries, looking at both differences and similarities.
Before getting further into it, we will make a brief recommendation about gambling in general. You should always play and gamble responsibly and if you feel like you are losing yourself in the online world, seek help with the gambling issues and stop yourself before it’s too late.
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USA Tribal Casinos
The American industry of tribal gaming in casinos began during the 1970’s. Back then the first state to open for the opportunity of playing with high stakes was the state of Florida who installed high-stake bingo operations in 1975. Since then, the amount of casinos have risen tremendously and more than 240 tribes have followed.
Within the gaming industry, the main revenue maker in American gaming is tribal gaming, and it constitutes 43% of all the legal commercial gaming revenue in total, based on numbers from 2012. A couple of years later in 2015, the total revenue from this industry was almost $30 billion American dollars.
The different types of casinos are divided into different classes. Class 1 refers to social gaming. Class 2 includes bingo, pull tabs and other non-bankcard games. Class 3 refer to games like Blackjack, slot machines and all the most typical games you will find in the casinos.
Canadian Tribal Casinos
Historically, the Canadian tribal casinos have always been a great way of stimulating the Canadian economy. As of 2020, there are 17 First Nation Casinos, mostly located in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but also in Manitoba, Ontario, and British Columbia.
The business of running casinos was seen first in the mid-1990’s where the industry of gambling really started to become a part of the culture. During the first years, they took the lead compared to American casinos and the competition between the two was first born.
Canada has always had clear rules and laws within this business and already in 1995, the FSIN First Nation Gaming act was signed into tribal law. The government has ensured a strong network and progressive development within this area since then, and it remains a very competitive and constantly developing industry.
The similarities
There are several similarities between the two countries ways of running tribal casinos and the biggest one might just be that in both countries, the tribal casinos are placed on tribal ground to help support local communities. Casinos are a way of creating jobs for the people and it is a good stimulation of the economy in the smaller circles, suffering from unemployment. Also, in both countries, several of the bigger casinos are responsible for quite a big part of the total revenue yearly.
The differences
There are also quite a lot of differences between the American and the Canadian tribal casinos, including first and most visibly the fact that there are only 18 tribal casinos in Canada vs. more than 450 of them in The United States of America. The growth within this industry is always way bigger in the USA, and the size of the casinos are also quite different, as the American is much bigger.
Furthermore, the IGRA has general control over American gaming as it is responsible for all regulations, whereas in Canada the individual provinces are responsible.