What happens during a disconnection or technical failure in the middle of an online casino game?

Dropping mid-game because of a dropped connection or a server hiccup is genuinely unsettling — you've got money on the table and no idea what happened to it. Ontario's regulated market has clear rules on exactly this scenario, and they're written in your favour.

What the AGCO's standards actually require

Service interruptions must be responded to and dealt with in a way that does not disadvantage players. At minimum, the gaming system must recover from failures that cause interruptions in a timely fashion, and — critically — must pay players the amount won up to that point, or return bets to players where a game cannot be continued after a service interruption, whichever is the better outcome for the player. That "better outcome" language is the key phrase: the tie goes to you, not the house.

The standards also address what happens when you reconnect. Information must be captured that is needed to continue a partially complete game within a reasonable period of time. In practice, this means the operator's system is supposed to log the game state — your bet, the round in progress, any outcome already determined — so the session can be picked up or resolved cleanly rather than simply disappearing.

For all single-player games, a mechanism must be in place to require a player to complete an incomplete game before being allowed to participate in any other games, where possible. So if you log back in and a round is still technically open, most regulated platforms will push you back into it rather than letting you start fresh and abandon the original stake.

For peer-to-peer games like poker, the rules are slightly different in character. For all peer-to-peer games, the player must be made aware of possible communication loss and the impact to the player in such an event. Read the relevant section in a site's terms before you sit down at a live poker table — the handling of a disconnection mid-hand can vary, and operators are required to disclose it upfront.

OLG.ca confirms the same principle from a player-facing angle: if your game is disconnected while you are playing, this does not have an impact on your odds of triggering a jackpot, and the results of your round can be reviewed in your game history. That game history log is your first port of call after any interruption — it's the contemporaneous record of what actually happened.

If the outcome is wrong or the bet disappears

Don't just shrug and move on. The best way to resolve a dispute is directly with the gaming site. The AGCO recommends checking any terms and conditions linked to your account or transaction, then contacting the site and following their formal complaints process. That process can take up to 90 days, so document everything — screenshots, timestamps, the game title — before you contact support.

If the operator's response doesn't satisfy you and you believe a rule was broken, you can make a complaint directly to the AGCO, which ensures registered internet gaming sites are following the rules. The AGCO does not resolve or make decisions on individual gambling-related transaction disputes, so you must first pursue the dispute directly with your operator by submitting a formal complaint with their customer service department.

All of this only applies on sites that are actually registered in Ontario's regulated market. The iGaming Ontario logo and the BetGuard logo displayed on a site are your signal that it operates under these standards — an offshore or unregistered site has none of these obligations. Check the official iGaming Ontario registry if you're ever unsure about a site's status.

If gambling ever feels like it's causing stress rather than entertainment, ConnexOntario is available 24/7 at 1-866-531-2600. Ontario's legal gambling age is 19+.