A recent CBC News article tells the story of T.S., a 22-year-old Ontario man recovering from gambling addiction. He started gambling three years ago for fun. But his gambling escalated until he lost $14,000 in a single night last year. While he was struggling with this addiction, gambling ads only encouraged him to gamble more.
Indeed, advertising is effective in attracting new players and getting them to bet more. It is also associated with more frequent and riskier gambling.
And yet, gambling ads are widespread. Research conducted between 2023 and 2026 found frequent gambling advertising in sports broadcasts. In 2026, over seven NHL games and two NBA games, researchers recorded 3,148 gambling messages. Harm reduction information was absent from almost 95% of gambling messages. More than 90% of gambling messages occurred within the sport itself, meaning it appeared on the court, the boards, or on players’ jerseys.
Today, watching sports without seeing gambling ads is almost impossible. But it doesn’t need to be.
Bill S-211
Bill S-211, introduced by Senator Marty Deacon in 2025, would require the government to create a national framework on sports betting advertising. The preamble to the bill recognizes the problems of increased exposure to gambling ads leading to more frequent and harmful gambling. It also notes that other countries have restricted advertising for sports betting.
The bill does not outline specific measures to prevent or restrict sports betting. Rather, it provides general categories that the government must consider in creating a national framework. The national framework must identify measures to restrict the use of sports betting advertising, promote research and information-sharing on preventing minors from being involved in gambling, and set out national standards to prevent and diagnose harmful gambling and addiction. The bill would also require the government to consult with various stakeholders as it creates the framework. The national framework would need to be prepared within one year of Bill S-211 coming into force.
Bill S-211 has passed in the Senate and has just been studied at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in the House of Commons. The bill will only need to pass 3rd reading in the House of Commons to become law. The bill would not ban gambling ads entirely, but it would take a step in the right direction towards combatting the negative impact gambling ads are having in Canada.
How Did We Get Here?
The federal government legalized single-event sports betting in 2021. Rather than create a federal framework around sports betting, it was left to the provinces to regulate sports betting. Most provinces already offered a version of sports betting based on parlays, where the bet must predict more than one outcome in order to win. But with single-event sports betting, bettors could wager money on a single game, or even a single event within a game, such as which team scores first, who scores, or what the margin of victory will be.
Most provinces have facilitated gambling, including sports betting, under crown corporations. But Ontario (in 2022) and Alberta (in 2026) have both opened a regulated online gambling market where private providers can offer online gambling.
In September 2026, Ontarians wagered over $9 billion online, through nearly 1.5 million active player accounts. In each of the first three months of Alberta’s new online gambling system, Albertans wagered over $1 billion per month. This number outpaces Ontario’s first three months, although Alberta has one third of Ontario’s population.
Most online gambling is from online casino games. But sports betting accounts for 11% of online wagers in Ontario and nearly 20% in Alberta.
Notably, the Ontario and Alberta governments both oppose Bill S-211.They say that advertising standards should be left to the provinces. Earlier this year, the Ontario government also defeated an opposition bill that would have banned all online gambling advertising.
Governments make a lot of revenue off gambling. That revenue is a clear incentive to permit and regulate gambling, and to allow advertising to go unhindered. Both Ontario and Alberta receive 20% of the total revenue from their online gambling markets. But this is shortsighted. The harms of problem gambling far outweigh the benefit in additional government revenue.
Conclusion
Bill S-211 is an important step toward limiting online gambling advertising in Canada. We hope Members of Parliament will support Bill S-211 at 3rd reading, so the federal government can begin work on its national framework.
For more information on online gambling in Canada, and a Christian perspective, you can find ARPA’s two-part article series here and here.
