Canadian Northern Bear Online Casino Closes

Northern Bear Casino was popularly known as the first online casino in Saskatchewan, the prairie province of Canada. It has been pointed out that this is a moniker given by the online casino itself. A recent announcement has stated that Northern Bear online casino will be indefinitely suspending all of its operations effective immediately. While “indefinitely suspending” sounds ominous, it has a silver lining. It is not going offline permanently and there is scope of it resuming operations at a later appropriate time.

Northern Bear online casino operated on the GEObet gambling network, and Bernie Shepherd, the CEO of GEObet, explained the reasons behind this announcement. He pointed out that the online gambling industry is very competitive and that it costs a lot of money to operate an online casino. Unless there is a sufficient strength of real money wagerers, it is impossible to meet the costs. Northern Bear online casino was launched two years ago. Though the online casino had excellent credentials, being licensed from reputed gaming jurisdictions like Curacao, Malta and Kahnawake, it apparently did not generate sufficient traffic to be viable.

Despite this, Shepherd has gone on record as saying that Northern Bear online casino was a success. It was operated by the First Nations and was a testimony to their capability and enterprise. Shepherd said, “It was a shining example of exactly what can be done with the people of the First Nations exercise their rights.” These rights have been an issue of dispute between the Canadian government and the tribes over the years. While there have been some setbacks for the people of the First Nations, there have also been a number of wins.

Shepherd is also a former White Bear First Nation chief. He has been one of the instrumental persons in the establishment of these casinos in Saskatchewan. He is also very experienced at running online casinos. His foray in this business began in the early 1990s, when Shepherd started a brick and mortar casino on a Carlyle reserve. However, the RCMP later seized the slot machines. Protracted negotiations led to the expansion of gambling regulations. The Saskatchewan government owns several casinos on reservations, and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations owns those on White Bear First Nation and a number of others.

While waiting for Northern Bear to open again, Canadian players can wager on a number of other online casinos. These include Royal Vegas and Omni Casino.

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