Governments Are Gambling with Canadians’ Well-Being

My wife and I aren’t big into professional sports. I enjoy the occasional game with friends, but watching organized athletics has never been a major pastime for us.

Our seven-year-old son, on the other hand, is into sports. First, it was the Edmonton Oilers and their run to the Stanley Cup final in 2024. Recently, it was soccer’s World Cup. He watched whenever he could.

His enthusiasm is what sports should be about — excitement, team loyalty and the game itself.

But then there are the betting ads. Sports broadcasts are full of them. As a public policy researcher, I know how problem gambling can lead to serious issues — financial and otherwise — especially among men and boys. As a parent, I know my son is influenced by what he sees on TV.

Increased involvement in sports betting is a serious social phenomenon that hurts our society. There have been some tentative steps toward policies with stronger safeguards, but nothing near what needs to be done to contain this major public issue.

State of play

On July 13, the Alberta government expanded its online-gambling market to allow private operators. In doing so, it is following Ontario’s move four years ago, albeit with some minor improvements.

During the last World Cup in 2022, legalized sports betting was only in its infancy in Canada. The federal government had legalized single-event sports betting just a year earlier. Ontario then led the country by opening up its online-gambling market. But the province figured it didn’t need the safeguards Cardus and others recommended to contain gambling harms — and it turned out to be a bad bet.

The Ontario experience is a cautionary tale. The latest data published by iGaming Ontario, the Crown corporation responsible for regulating the industry, shows that average spending per player account was $329 per month — up from $158 per month when the industry launched. That’s not the average amount that players wagered. It’s the average amount they lost in a single month. That’s almost $4,000 a year. And that probably understates the problem because many players hold more than one account.

Experts suggest that it isn’t safe to lose more than one per cent of household income on gambling. Statistics Canada figures show average pre-tax household earnings were $107,000 in Ontario in 2024. That suggests that losing anything more than $1,070 per year should be considered unsafe. Yet Ontario players are losing more than 3.5 times that amount already. This is not a yellow warning signal. It’s a flashing red light begging for our attention.

Gambling online is more dangerous than wagering in person. It’s more accessible, like having a mini-casino in your pocket, making it easier to bet alone or when drunk or high. Legalizing single-event sports betting also means gamblers no longer pick a team before a game and then sit back and watch. They can also bet on which team will score first or when and if soccer superstar Lionel Messi will score, among many other things. And they can make new in-game bets repeatedly during the match. It’s highly addictive gambling, more like a slot machine than a card game.

A rising concern for men and boys

ConnexOntario is a helpline for people with alcohol, drug and gambling addictions, as well as mental-health issues. Researchers report that the average number of calls that ConnexOntario received about gambling from men 25 to 44 years old almost doubled from the period before legalization to the period after. Among boys and men between 15 and 24, it increased by 161 per cent.

Research in the United States shows that online sports betting is leading to decreased credit scores, lower credit limits, more loans and more bankruptcies. These effects are worse if you are male, young and living in a low-income neighbourhood.

The consequences go far beyond financial. Researchers have measured the likelihood of experiencing different harms based on what percentage of income a person spends on gambling. At 3.5 per cent, an average player is 7.7 times more likely to have a troubled relationship, 5.9 times more likely to experience emotional or psychological harm and 6.4 times more prone to health problems. That’s compared with someone who gambles less than 0.1 per cent of income.

Gambling-related concerns are one reason Cardus participated in a consultation on a proposed national health strategy for men and boys. How to deal with problem gambling, especially sports betting, must feature prominently in any plan the government develops, as must ways to address the increased risk for males.

The influence of advertising

Advertising increases demand. Otherwise gambling companies wouldn’t do it so relentlessly. Anyone who watches sports in Ontario will have noticed the ads. They’re not just during commercial breaks. They appear on the screen during broadcasts and are emblazoned on helmets and jerseys. This is especially concerning when advertising promotes more addictive in-game betting.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Saskatchewan MP behind a bill that led to legal single-event sports betting said his goal was to move activity away from illegal or offshore markets. It was a debatable goal, given the confusion about the size of those markets in the first place. But even if you accept the reasoning, juicing demand to increase the amount of gambling does not follow from it.

The Ontario MP who originally sponsored the bill now calls it “sad” and “deplorable.” It’s not hard to see why. We have seen a steady increase in the number of online gambling platforms, the number of player accounts and the total dollar amount gambled in Ontario. We should see these trends as a worrying sign that advertising is driving demand for a dangerous product.

Some ways forward

Policymakers are waking up to the realities of sports betting in Canada. The Alberta government has pledged to create a centralized platform for players to opt out of all online gambling apps. Ontario followed suit this past May.

Parliament is also considering a bill that would require a national framework on sports betting advertising. It contains few details and is a long way from becoming law, but it’s a good start.

Much more needs to be done to match the scale of the challenge. Federal and provincial governments must enact laws and develop policies such as:

• Banning sports betting advertising: Gambling ads should be treated the same as ads for alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. The federal government prohibits broadcast advertising for tobacco and cannabis and tightly restricts it for alcohol. Print advertising for these products is severely limited in what it can say and depict, and whom it can target.
• At minimum, banning advertising for in-game bets and during broadcasts: The government should at least ban advertising on these most addictive behaviours. Better yet would be a “whistle-to-whistle” ban on all sports betting ads during a match broadcast (as in the United Kingdom).
• Improving the efficiency of anti-gambling messaging: Ontarians are advised to “Know your limit. Play within it.” But that doesn’t capture the hazards of online sports betting. Compare that with anti-tobacco messaging that warns of lung cancer, complete with explicit imagery of blackened lungs. “Know how much you’re going to lose today” would tell a more accurate story.
• Requiring gambling companies to help fund research, prevention and treatment: Governments should mandate a contribution of one dollar for every dollar companies spend on ads. That would make them responsible for the fallout.

As Alberta expands its online sports betting, it should act swiftly to prevent the pitfalls Ontario has encountered. The federal government should do the same in its own jurisdiction. It’s OK to have fun with a wager or two on a game, but experience has already revealed serious problems with sports betting, especially among young men.

Let’s not gamble with the well-being of Canadians. Allow my son — and all of us — to enjoy watching sports without being influenced by betting ads.

This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.