What is the difference between a voluntary spending limit and a mandatory one imposed by the casino?

You're probably wondering whether a limit set by the casino can actually be lifted whenever the operator feels like it — and whether your own self-imposed limits carry any real teeth. Those are the right questions to ask, and the answers are meaningfully different for the two types.

Limits you set yourself

Ontario's AGCO requires every registered operator to give players an easy and obvious way to set gaming limits — including deposit limits and loss limits — upon registration and at any time after. The time periods offered must include 24 hours, 7 days, and one month. These are your voluntary limits: you choose the type, the amount, and the period.

Here's the protection that makes them meaningful: once you've set a limit, you can't just change your mind in the heat of the moment and have it vanish immediately. Where a gaming limit has been previously established by a player, a request to relax or eliminate that limit shall only be implemented after a cooling-off period of at least 24 hours. That friction is intentional — it gives you time to reconsider before a looser limit actually takes effect.

Crucially, where a gaming limit has been previously established by a player, it may not be relaxed by an operator acting unilaterally, without instructions from the player. So the operator can't quietly raise or remove your limit on their own — only you can request that, and even then the cooling-off period applies. The AGCO has enforced this: PointsBet Canada was issued a $150,000 penalty, partly for failing to enforce the required 24-hour cooling-off period when a player cancelled their per-day deposit limit.

This is also a good moment to note: you must be 19 years of age or older to participate in all internet gaming products conducted and managed by iGaming Ontario. If you ever feel your play is getting away from you, ConnexOntario (1-866-531-2600) is Ontario's problem-gambling support line.

Limits the operator imposes on you

A mandatory limit is one the casino applies to your account without your request — typically triggered by their responsible-gambling monitoring systems. In Ontario, igaming operators have an obligation to proactively monitor their patrons' play for signs of high-risk gambling, and to take appropriate actions to intervene and reduce the potential for gambling-related harms. An operator-imposed limit is one of those actions.

The key legal distinction is direction of control. Gaming limits, however imposed, shall be enforced by the gaming system — meaning a mandatory limit carries exactly the same technical force as one you chose yourself. But the rules about who can change it differ. Because a mandatory limit wasn't set at your request, the cooling-off-period rules that govern your requests to relax a limit don't apply in the same way. The operator placed it; the operator's own policies and the AGCO's standards govern how and whether it can be adjusted. You generally can't simply opt out of a mandatory limit the way you could decline to set a voluntary one in the first place.

In practice, if you believe a mandatory limit has been applied incorrectly, your first step is to contact the operator's support team. If that doesn't resolve it, iGaming Ontario has customer care and dispute resolution policies that set out requirements and processes operators must implement for players with serious concerns — and iGO's resolutions to those disputes are binding on operators.

The practical takeaway

Voluntary limits are a tool you control, with a built-in 24-hour brake to protect you from impulsive changes. Mandatory limits are a safeguard the operator controls, applied when their systems flag concern — and they're not yours to simply switch off. Both types are required under the AGCO Registrar's Standards, and at a minimum every regulated Ontario site must provide spend-limit and time-limit tools and the ability to take a short-term break or self-exclude for longer.

If you want to go further than a single-site limit, BetGuard lets you opt out of all regulated online gambling in Ontario through a single self-exclusion registration. You can verify that a site is fully registered by checking for the iGaming Ontario and BetGuard logos — every fully approved Ontario operator displays both, confirming the site is managed by iGaming Ontario and regulated by the AGCO. The live registry of registered operators is at the iGaming Ontario website.