What Are Geo Restricted Slot Games On iPhone?
Geo restricted slot games on iPhone are those slot games apps or casinos that are restricted for a particular geographical location or country.
IPhone Apps that offer real money gaming like sports betting, poker, casino games, horse racing or lotteries must have necessary licensing and permissions in the locations where the App is used, must be geo-restricted to those locations, and must be free on the App Store. Illegal gambling aids, including card counters, are not permitted on the App Store. Lottery apps must have consideration, chance, and a prize. This means iPhone or Apple don’t want people using gambling apps in places where it’s illegal, no matter which App Store they bought it from.
Geo Restrictions of Slots Online
Geo-restrictions is essentially when a casino site or app uses in-built security technology to limit access to its slots and games or services based on the user’s geographical location. The tech behind geo-restrictions first calculates the gamers location based on their IP (internet provider) address and its country of origin, then checks the user’s locations based on a pre-existing blacklist (which regions are not allowed or restricted) or whitelist (which regions are allowed).
Geo-restrictions may restrict a player’sability to access certain parts of the site, completely remove portions of the site’s games from the player’s visibility, or lock the player from even gaining access to the domain altogether. It is a common technology used by many different online sites to control access video games, gambling apps or slots and more. Usually it is employed as a measure to account for copyright or licensing, but also for enforcement of pricing discrimination or to block malicious Web traffic from a specific region.
Geo-restrictions is employed by Internet gambling venues due to the fact that online gambling laws and gambling legislations are different in every country. Offshore casino websites typically operate outside of a region’s borders and adhere to different international laws and regulations enforced by advanced gambling and licensing jurisdictions, but they must still abide by basic online gambling laws in each territory they service. If not done so could result in unexpected and unwanted legal action.
If you visit an online casino website and cannot play or even see certain casino game software, or cannot access the website altogether, this means your region is geo-blocked from the online casino in question in some way or form. Usually the website will put up a notice informing visitors of the restrictions, but many gambling venues do not actually do this and often leave it up to the player to figure out if their country of origin is allowed to access their services.
Of the 195 recognized countries in the world today, 56 of them have significant legal regulations in place to restrict gambling. Moreover ten of them have banned online gambling altogether. To comply with international law, most gambling websites use geo-restrictions or blocking, which restricts or blocks access to users from countries where online gambling is illegal.
Are there any geo restricted slot games in Canada?
In Canada legal gaming is currently provided by provincial government monopolies. To the extent that private companies are involved, they are structurally at least simply suppliers of goods and services to the applicable Lottery Corporation. In Ontario for example, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation or OLG was established, while in British Columbia, gaming is provided by or through the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (“BCLC”)
In Ontario, the regulator of gaming is the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (“AGCO”). The AGCO “registers and regulates every person providing gaming services to the OLG, from casino operators to croupiers.
Operators are required to enter into a lengthy Casino Operating Services Agreement (“COSA”) with the OLG which is highly restrictive, notwithstanding the fact that many of Ontario’s casinos are operating under well-known US casino brands. Operators, as suppliers to the OLG, interact with customers in their casinos as “agents” of the OLG. Further, as noted above, all companies providing any services to a casino in Ontario must also be registered and regulated by the AGCO.
In the 2019 Budget, the government stated its intention to establish an online market for iGaming in Ontario that was “both competitive and protects consumers”. In the 2020 Budget, the province announced that the law would be amended to give the AGCO the authority to conduct and manage iGaming, in addition to having the role of the regulator and to specify that the AGCO should establish a dedicated subsidiary as the “conduct and manage” entity to (as the government put it) “manage the relationship between the government and private iGaming operators”.
Starting in March, the AGCO began significant consultations with all members of the industry including offshore operators with the goal of ensuring that the structure put in place would get as many of the offshore operators as possible “inside the tent”. At the same time, it established the “dedicated subsidiary”, which is called iGaming Ontario or IGO.
Operators must obtain a separate licence for each of the brands they intend to use in Ontario unless they can prove that their customer has a singular account. For example, the customer must have only one account that he can access from any of the sites. Companies providing gaming-related services to operators (legally to IGO) must also be registered.
Those casinos sites or slots that are not registered are geo restricted in Canada.
What is geo-targeting?
Geo targeting is when an online website uses in-built technology to detect the location of a visitor to the domain via their IP address and Internet provider. With this information, a website can control and filter certain games or slots based on the user’s recognised country, region, zip code, and so on. Advertisers and marketers often make use of geo targeting to reach their desired audiences, and other well-known businesses such as YouTube use geo targeting to control availability of content based on licensing and existing regional restrictions.
Geo targeting is employed by online casino websites to better service its players based on their country of origin. For example, an online casino might be running a special promotion celebrating a holiday specific to just one country, so they might only have certain promotional material appear to users who have IP addresses from said country.
Online casinos only use geo-restrictions so they abide by gambling laws unique to the countries they service to protect themselves and the player from running into undesired legal troubles.
If only a few games are blocked to your country and not the entire site, it means the software provider of the games in question rather than the online casino has chosen to block its games from being accessed by users from your region. Geo-targeting is less common and is more often used so players from certain countries are serviced better.
How to play slots if there is any geo restriction?
In case certain slots or any casino is restricted to play from a country or are geo restricted slot games, you can find an alternative offshore casino site to frequent, of which there are plenty to choose from.
If you have been on the online scene long enough, you are more than likely fully aware and knowledgeable about VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. These are digital services, paid or free, which grant Internet anonymity by masking your true IP address and allowing you to use an IP address from another country. VPNs are most often used to access slots and casino sites that is geo blocked or unavailable in a user’s country of origin, but they are also used as an additional security measure to safeguard your privacy while surfing the internet. Essentially, your detected IP address will appear from the country the server of your VPN is located.
VPN providers have no oversight or authority over what activities their customers partake in, including getting around geographical restrictions. Thus, their popularity, especially as the general public grow more tech-savvy, has increased over the last few years.
VPNs are extremely popular with online players and gamblers, and not just for the additional privacy – but because it allows players to get around geo restrictions and play slot games and entire casino games they normally would not be allowed to access based on their local online gambling laws.
How to avoid restrictions when playing slots online?
Finally remember not all slots and casino games are geo restricted in Canada. In few provinces you might get blocked to play all the games. As an example evolution tables are not available in British Columbia (and possibly some other provinces), but this geo restrictions don’t apply to all of Canada.
You can play the games at the reputed online sites free or with real money here which are not blocked to Canadians.