Ontario Live Poker

#1 – Great Canadian Casino Toronto

We have put the new Toronto casino resort at the top of our list, boosted by the very recent announcement that GG Poker – who now owns the WSOP – has partnered with The Great Canadian Casino Resort to create Ontario’s official and only stop for WSOP Circuit and bracelet events. This partnership will expand on the casino’s poker room by introducing a new player’s lounge, upgraded wi-fi and additional TVs located throughout the room. The exciting news to players is that the partnership will focus on creating the best live and online poker experience for players, offering premier tournaments and rewards for playing.

The casino is conveniently located on the grounds of Woodbine Racetrack, one of the best horse racing facilities in North America and minutes from Toronto’s Pearson Airport. The poker room and attached resort offers an expansive hotel and plenty of options to eat on site.

The room offers poker 24/7 and will have at least 6 cash tables in play and has both local bad beat jackpots for both NLH and PLO, as well as an integrated bad beat jackpot with neighbouring Pickering Casino Resort, Great Blue Heron Casino and Elements Casino in Brantford. The integrated bad beat starts with losing with quad aces and will drop in hand strength every 4 weeks until it reaches quad eights where it stays until won. The local bad beat jackpot for NLH starts with losing with quad 2’s while the PLO bad beat qualifies players with losing with quad aces. On a random morning, they had 3 $1/$3 NLH tables, a $2/$5 NLH table, a $2/$5 PLO table and a $20/$40 Limit Omaha table going – with over 100 players on the wait list to get a seat! Rake currently sits at 10% of the pot with a maximum of $12 to $15, depending on the limits.

In terms of tournaments, they are the only casino that has hosted the WSOP Circuit when that came to town in March of 2024. There are plans on future circuit series and rumours of WSOP bracelets being available but at this time, nothing has been confirmed. The downside to Toronto is the lack of tournaments outside of the WSOP Circuit – as of February 2025, they do not offer a daily, weekly or monthly tournament calendar.

Overall, between the cash game selection, the location centrally in Toronto, and the lower rake, there is no doubt that poker players all over are going to continue to flock to Toronto to get their poker fill.

#2 – Pickering Casino Resort

The newest casino resort in Ontario is in the #2 spot on our list. Pickering Casino Resort officially opened in April 2023 with the poker room following shortly thereafter. Located just east of Toronto right off Highway 401 and the GO Train, access via transit or by car is easy and simple to find and with the poker room open 24/7, the action never stops!

The room offers both cash and tournaments – generally you will see no less than 4 $1/$3 NLH tables and a $2/$5 NLH with a substantial wait list to get into the game. As mentioned earlier, they participate in the integrated bad beat jackpot and maintain their own local bad beat jackpot. The qualifying hand for the local bad beat is losing with quad 2’s or better. However, even though they are operated by The Great Canadian Casino Resort group, the rake is different here from Toronto – 10% of the pot but the max take is $20, regardless of stake.

Where rake is a negative, tournaments are a positive as Pickering does offer regular events. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are tournament days, offering $200 and $310 turbos on Tuesdays with 20 min levels, and $575 and $750 tournaments on Wednesdays with 30 min levels, starting in and around the lunch hour. Some Tuesdays they offer a second turbo tournament in the evenings for even more selection to players who can’t play during the day.

Poker players looking to play NLH cash or tournaments will find Pickering as a destination for those in the eastern part of the province, however the lack of PLO cash and the higher rake will deter specific players. Regardless, the pros outweigh the cons and build up Pickering to the #2 spot on our list!

#3 – Casino Niagara

One resort not controlled by The Great Canadian Casino Resort group is Casino Niagara, located in Niagara, Falls, ON and overlooking the falls themselves near the Rainbow Bridge connecting to Niagara, Falls, NY, Casino Niagara is now the only option for poker players in the area, but featuring 18 dedicated tables offering both cash games and tournaments and operating daily from noon to 3:45am, it’s worth the drive to check out the action! However – don’t confuse this for Fallsview Casino which is located closer to the falls themselves – this mega resort has everything but poker.

This room offers the widest range of table limits, starting at $1/$3 for NLH and going up to $50/$100; limit hold’em starting at $3/$6 and going up to $50/$100; Seven Card Stud starting at $1/$3 and PLO options going all the way up to $500/$1000, the highest limits of poker played in Ontario can be found here!

Tournaments are also very popular here – every Wednesday, players will find a $275 NLH that starts around 12:30 and on Fridays, the bounties come into play with a $340 tournament and a start time of 4:30pm. The last Sunday of the month players can play in a $550 buy-in tournament with a 12:30pm start time, and every three months they offer a $1,000 buy-in tournament with two flights. 

While all that sounds good, the big con for action here is the rake – any limit, you will be charged $7 per 30 mins of seat time – even playing $1/$3 NLH. This could seriously eat away at your stack if you intend to play longer than a couple of hours, having to shell out 9 BB for a 2-hour session. Big pots won’t get raked massively, but if you go card dead, your stack will suffer as much as you will so be aware going into play here.

Poker enthusiasts will want to make the trek to Casino Niagara to get their poker fill, and with that being the only option south of Elements Brantford, and no action in the Buffalo / Niagara Falls, NY area, this is a hot spot for poker action seven days a week – we just wish they didn’t charge you $14 / hour to play $1/$3 NLH!

#4 – Elements Brantford

One of the less known casinos that offers poker in the province would be Elements Brantford, located about 60 minutes west of Toronto, this casino competes with several options in Toronto, Niagara Falls and Windsor, however with a steady flow of cash game action available any day of the week starting at 12pm and going well into the early morning, players who make the trek here will be treated to a comfortable and reasonable experience playing poker.

Elements Brantford offers Limit Hold’em at $4/$8, $10/$20 and $20/$40 limits with a rake of 10% of the pot, up to $10 or $12, depending on the limit. No-limit hold’em is also an option at $1/$3 and $2/$5 limits with a max rake of $15. Finally, players can find Omaha at either $10/$20 or $20/$40 with a max rake of $15. Elements Brantford was one of the first casinos in the province that offered no-limit poker and continues to be the most popular option with a reasonable rake. They too have the integrated bad beat jackpot, as well as a local one that requires to lose a hand with quads.

Like most casinos in the province, tournament options are few and far between with no current options offered. Players looking for tournaments must look south to Niagara Falls, or east to Pickering. They have no history of hosting tournaments, and something that is not likely to change in the future.

Poker players located centrally in Toronto or east will have a hard time justifying the drive to Brantford, but players who play are rewarded with a great atmosphere and one of the better rake policies in the province.

#5 – Caesars Windsor

The further poker room from most of the others in Ontario is Caesars Windsor and falls near the bottom of our list, simply from an accessibility perspective. While the hours are great – opens at noon daily and closes depending on the traffic inside, the 14 tables dedicated for cash games and tournament poker should be a destination for players all over the province, but its location in southwest Ontario means that players in the Toronto area are driving 4+ hours to play – and with so many options now available and closer by, you will get more Americans crossing the border from Detroit than you will Canadians playing here.

14 tables offer Texas Hold’em, Omaha and Seven Card stud – however unlike other casinos, the number of players willing to play was far less than what we saw in the Toronto casinos with only $1/$2 NL Hold’em playing on 3 tables with a waitlist of only 4 players. Other limits and variants are available, but only when demand warrants. The big question is what rake they charge – they do not list this on their website, but we have seen from multiple sources that the rake is 10% of the pot up to a maximum of $8 – which is unheard of these days in Ontario! The action appears to be full of regulars but if you are looking for the best value for your money, Windsor may be worth the trek to play!

Tournaments are offered here as well, but the selection is not as large as in Niagara Falls or Pickering – Friday tournaments with a $245 buy-in and a start of 6pm can be found to start your weekend, and a $150 buy-in on Sundays with a 2:15pm start are the only regular weekly events. They do offer a freeroll three times a year to those who frequent their weekly tournaments and cash games which is not found at the other rooms, but would only be open to the regulars, and not people who fair well in one tournament.

At the end of the day, we have to put Caesars Windsor towards the bottom – the poker room appears quieter than others, with not as large of a spread as other rooms, and the fact that it’s a solid drive for most players who would be looking for a game will offset the rake paid by the gas spent driving down one of the busiest highways in North America.

#6 – Great Blue Heron Casino and Resort

We slide GBH into the #6 and bottom spot because of the access to poker – this being one of the longer standing casinos offering poker, it is disappointing to see the status of poker here today.  Located in Port Perry, which is approximately 45 minutes northeast of Toronto, GBH has offered cash games and tournaments in the past, but COVID-19 and the opening of the Pickering resort has changed the way poker is offered here.   In addition, availability is the most limited with the room only open from 10am to 2am Thursday to Sunday.

Information about the cash game offerings is not available online, unlike for Toronto and Pickering which players can see the status on their websites, GBH poker players will need to contact the pit directly, either by phone or in person, to get their name on the wait list. While NLH is on the table, GBH has specialized in limit poker traditionally, and still offers $5/$10, $10/$20 and $20/$40 limit hold’em, along with $1/$3 and $2/$5, depending on the demand.  Limit Omaha is also available with limits at $10/$20 and $20/$40, but regardless of the limit and variant, the rake here is better than at Pickering, pulling 10% of the pot up to a maximum of $15.

Where cash games are a pro over Pickering, tournaments are a negative as GBH no longer offers tournaments. Before COVID-19 hit, GBH offers a plethora of tournaments on a weekly, monthly and yearly schedule, but today they are a cash game option only, and given that the same operator operates GBH as Pickering and Toronto, the expectation that tournaments will return is not high.

Great Blue Heron feels like it’s the forgotten older child of The Great Canadian Casino family given the investments made in Pickering and Toronto, but if you are looking for a solid cash game with a lower rake option and are located east of Toronto and looking for a game on the weekend, this is a viable option to play.

Honorable Mention – CNE Casino

We are adding a brief review of the CNE Casino, located on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition near the water in downtown Toronto. Operating during the summer months, the big attraction is the shootout style tournament held annually. In 2024, they offered up to 200 sit-n-gos with 10 players and a $200 buy-in, awarding seats in weekly semi-finals during the month of August, and cumulating with the final at the end of the CNE in early September. The prize pool was expected to approach $320,000 and always draws a massive crowd. You will also see players selling and buying semi-final seats up, bypassing the initial sit n go phase.

As you can see, while a population of greater than 14 million people should serve up amazing and numerous options for the poker player out there, the reality is that if you don’t live within 90 mins of the greater Toronto area, your options to play live are not great. Access to poker for those in the eastern part of the province are no longer available, so players tend to travel across the border to Montreal, Quebec to go to Playground or Casino Montreal, or to cross the border from Ottawa and play at Casino Lac-Lemay. Regardless, the live poker scene in Ontario is on the up and with the WSOP partnering with The Great Canadian Casino Resort, the future looks bright!

More information about Ontario:

• Online Poker in Ontario