How do I track my wins and losses throughout the year to be prepared if a tax question ever comes up?

Good news first: for the vast majority of Ontario players, gambling winnings are not taxable in Canada. Lottery winnings of any amount are explicitly listed by the CRA among amounts that are not reported or taxed — and the same principle extends to recreational casino and sports-betting winnings. Gambling, even regular, frequent and systematic gambling, is something that by its nature is not generally regarded as a commercial activity except under very exceptional circumstances. The narrow exception — where winnings could become taxable business income — applies only to people who operate with something closer to a systematic, professional edge: there are some exceptional cases where gambling activities have been held to be taxable, but these relate to taxpayers who applied inside information, knowledge and skill to their activities.

So why keep records at all? A few solid reasons: you might want to demonstrate you're a recreational player rather than a professional one; your bank may ask about large deposits; and having a clear picture of your own activity is just good financial hygiene. Here's how to do it practically.

Pull your history directly from your Ontario operator accounts

This is the easiest starting point, and Ontario's regulatory framework actually requires operators to make this data available to you. Under the AGCO's standards, all player account transactions must be recorded and logged accurately, and that information must be made readily available to the player — at minimum including deposit/withdrawal history and current balance. Beyond that, operators must give you access to total monies wagered for a session or period of time, total monies won or lost for a session or period of time, and your account balance at the start and end of each session.

In practice, log into each regulated Ontario site you use, find the transaction history or account statement section, and download or screenshot your activity at the end of each calendar year. Don't wait — some platforms limit how far back you can pull detailed history through the player-facing interface, even if the data technically exists on their end.

What to actually record

A simple spreadsheet works fine. For each operator account, note:

• Total deposits for the year
• Total withdrawals for the year
• Net result (withdrawals minus deposits — this is your real-world gain or loss)
• Bank statements showing those transfers, which independently corroborate the operator data

The deposit/withdrawal method is the cleanest proxy for actual cash in and cash out. Account balance at year-end matters too — if you had $200 sitting in an account on December 31, that's still "in play," not a realized withdrawal.

Keep your bank records too

Your bank statements are a second, independent layer of evidence. Every deposit to an Ontario gambling site and every withdrawal back to your bank account will appear there. If you ever needed to reconstruct a year's activity, the combination of operator transaction history and bank records is about as airtight as it gets. Keep these for at least six years — that's the standard CRA reassessment window for most individuals.

Only play on registered Ontario operators

This matters for recordkeeping too. Look for the iGaming Ontario logo wherever you play to know you're on a site offered by a legal, regulated operator that offers player protections and meets Ontario's high standards. Regulated sites also display the BetGuard logo. Offshore or unregistered sites have no obligation to provide you with accurate transaction records — and if a tax question ever did come up, having clean records from a regulated platform is far more defensible than trying to reconstruct activity from an unlicensed one.

If your gambling ever starts to feel less like entertainment and more like something you're managing around, ConnexOntario (1-866-531-2600) is available 24/7. And if your situation is genuinely complex — high volumes, mixed professional and recreational play — a Canadian tax accountant familiar with CRA's position on gambling income is worth a conversation. The CRA's own guidance on this is in Income Tax Folio S3-F9-C1, which is publicly available on Canada.ca.