The Canadian Government has never really made a huge fuss about operators and people who play gambling games online in this country. However these activities have never been formally legalized, although there were some provincial governments operating legal online gambling sites. What we are referring to here, is the private sector. Up till now much licensing has taken place in the independent state of Kahnawake - Ontario.

Now, apparently the sky is the limit for small to medium business (SMB) as Canada provides the green light for online gambling concerns to GO! The new regulations have been approved and the online gambling sector is expected to grow by projected revenues of up to $16 billion - perhaps even more who knows? This creates tons of opportunities for SMB's to cash in.

All Canadian Provincial Governments are moving towards regulating online gambling. This means that local companies which develop casino-type, Web-based games can actually cash in on a market place which is becoming more legitimate by the day. Much like European countries, they have realized that online gambling is here to stay and that their residents want to play these games. Not only that, but this is a massive industry which generates massive turnover, revenue and profits too.

World-wide this industry has tripled in size and revenues have exceed anything ever expected. Since the fledgling industry got off the ground in 1995 - in terms of revenues generated - it now exceeds the combined revenue generating efforts of magazines and book sales, spectator sports, social establishments, movies theatres and all performing arts.

Paul Burns who is the Vice-president of the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA) has been quotes as saying; “Our industry supports more than 128,000 full-time jobs, 283,000 associated jobs, generates $12.5 billion in labour income and $8.7 billion in annual revenues remitted to the government.”

Until now, much like the US; Canadian online gambling firms which operate within the radar, have had to ply their trade overseas. However a great deal of potential income has been slipping below the radar with the lack of regulation and legislation in place. Canadian laws essentially prohibited online gaming and this is about to change.

Provincially regulated online gambling was launched officially in British Columbia last year, and seeing the good sense in this, other provinces are following suit. Recently Quebec instituted a new online gambling structure which expects to earn in excess of $50 million annually. The scene in Ontario has also been set, and they are ready to launch a new plan for online gambling by 2012. This particular system is expecting a rake of $400 million in revenue annually.

The CGA is expecting a boom-time for technologically adept Canadian SMB's - a veritable online gambling gold-rush, if the reports coming out are correct. There will obviously be valuable spin-offs to this industry too, as players get into the swing of things and demand more sophisticated equipment - such as HD monitors and so on. Employment opportunities in highly technical jobs are also expected to be more in demand.