Atlantic Lottery Review

Atlantic Lottery’s online gaming website (ALC.CA) is attractive, bright and well-designed but is very ‘hit and miss’ in the quality and variety of wagering options available.  The Atlantic Lottery is a consortium of several provincial and territorial lotteries in Atlantic Canada encompassing Nova Scotia, Newfoundland/Labrador, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.  The ALA.CA website is a notch above the limited offerings available to Ontario residents but well below the impressive online resources available to gambling enthusiasts in British Columbia and Quebec.

Online customer service is disappointing.  A FAQ is provided but it takes visitors to the ALC’s corporate website (corp.alc.ca) and the questions addressed focus more on the regulatory, administrative and legal component.  While players might have questions about these subjects the majority of questions would concern accounts, gameplay and funding.  A telephone customer service number is provided though no hours of operation are given.  An email address is also provided though the website stresses that due to ‘security concerns’ no personal account information will be discussed via email.  This is inexcusable for a government run website and suggests that the technology behind alc.ca is less than cutting edge.  The security of email may have been a valid concern in the early days of the Internet but there are now a variety of secure messaging solutions that could be employed.

Funding is through the ‘typical’ methods used by online sites run by provincial lotteries with major credit cards and bank transfers accepted.  The problem is that this isn’t explained anywhere on the website.  Funding options are offered once an account is set up and confirmed but it’s obvious that potential players might have questions about this before they go through the sign up process.  Explaining payment information is a fundamental part of e-commerce and not offering this prior to signup is a ‘rookie mistake’ that shouldn’t happen at this level.

Lottery Games

To their credit, the Atlantic Lottery offers six of their eight lottery games available for online play including the national lotteries LottoMax and Lotto639.  The games that aren’t available online are ‘Pick 4’ and keno.  The rationale of keeping both as ‘offline only’ games is understandable but incorrect and ultimately, only hurts the players.  Players who can’t play the games they want online won’t necessarily head out to the local bar to find a VLT—they’re more likely to play at one of the thousands of other online gaming options available to Canadian citizens.

Sports Betting

Single game betting is currently not permitted in Canada.  This will hopefully change in the near future and legislation is in the Canadian parliament to address this.  For now, however, sports betting options are limited only to ‘multiple events’ though most lotteries offer creative wagering propositions within these regulatory boundaries.

Sports betting in Atlantic Canada is managed by Sports Direct, Inc. under the ‘ProLine’ label.  In addition to ‘straight betting’, the ALC website offers wagering action on futures, limited live betting and daily fantasy sports betting.

Other Games

Casino gaming is all but nonexistent on the ALC website.  There is a section called ‘Pick and Click’ that offers games as divergent as crossword puzzles and ‘Lobster Chase’—among these games is a three card poker variant that is the only thing on the site approximating a casino game experience.  Bingo is offered with single player and multiplayer options.

Conclusion

The ALC.CA website isn’t the worst online gaming platform run by a Canadian provincial lottery but it is decidedly mediocre.  The site itself isn’t hard to use but the lack of customer support and explanatory information about signup, game play and money transfers is inexcusable.  The lottery and sports betting options are decent but the site is a far cry from the extensive gaming options found in Quebec and British Columbia.

Bonus: N/A

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