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Last fall, Maclean’s published a story about Phil, a young man addicted to gambling. He bet on sports before he ever gambled online, but he started doing the latter in 2022 when he noticed online gambling was everywhere. He tried making money on football but kept losing. The sports betting app then let him switch to casino mode, offering greater game variety. But Phil kept losing, even as he tried to climb out of debt while he was off work due to an injury.  

In 2023, a player on the Ottawa Senators was suspended for half of the NHL season for sports betting. Ironically, as soon as his suspension was over, he once again wore his team helmet – which features the logo of a popular gambling company. In the NHL, gambling ads are plastered over all the boards and logos appear on jerseys or helmets.  Gambling also dominates video advertising during games. There is a deep irony when athletes advertise an activity that they themselves are prohibited from playing. 

Today’s Gambling Industry 

In 2024, net revenue (revenue after deducting prizes and winnings) for commercial gambling in Canada was over $17 billion. Breaking revenue down provincially, net gambling revenue per adult is highest in Saskatchewan, totalling $827 per adult.  

Online gambling has grown popular, particularly in Ontario. Nationally, in 2024, net revenue for online gambling totalled over $3.5 billion of the $17 billion total revenue from all sources. That’s roughly a fifth of total net revenue for commercial gambling in Canada – but keep in mind how new it is. Of this $3.5 billion, nearly $3 billion came from Ontario. Since Ontario opened the online gambling market to private providers in 2022, revenue jumped from less than $500 million to the nearly $3 billion in 2024.  

Ontarians wagered an estimated $77.6 billion online in 2024, a 31% increase from 2023 ($59.3 billion) and well above the $21.6 billion wagered online over nine months in 2022. Online gambling from private providers generated revenues (all wagers, minus winnings, and not including other costs) of $2.98 billion in 2024, an increase of more than 31% over the previous year. Ontario’s online gaming industry had 1.3 million active player accounts by September 2024. The Ontario government collects 20% of iGaming’s revenue, amounting to an estimated $174 million last year.  

Effects of Gambling 

Unfortunately, gambling isn’t just really good at generating revenue. Gambling has been shown to lead to suicidality, poverty, relationship breakdown, family violence, neglect of children, and various forms of crime. Gambling is also commonly used by criminal organizations for money laundering. 

A 2022 study by Statistics Canada (using data from 2018) found that 64.5% of Canadians over the age of 15 reported gambling in the past year. Of these, 1.6% (304,400) were at a moderate-to-severe risk of problems related to gambling. Although people from lower-income households were less likely to gamble, they were also more susceptible to gambling problems. People who gamble more than 1% of their income are at a much higher risk of harm to finances, relationships, and health than those who gamble less than 1%. For example, they are 4.3 times more likely to experience financial harm, 4.7 times as likely to experience relational harm, 3.9 times as likely to experience emotional or psychological harm, and 4.6 times as likely to experience harm from health problems. The average iGaming Ontario account spent between $232 and $320 per month during the 2024 fiscal year. This is well above 1% of monthly income for most participants. (One would have to earn $145/hour or $278,400/year for $232 to be only 1% of monthly income.)  

In a study that considered 57 different risk factors, the players most at risk of problem gambling were those who gambled online. One U.S. study found that after the legalization of sports betting there were 23% more searches for help for gambling addiction, an increase which appeared to correspond to the growth in online sports betting. In 2021, 21% of callers to Ontario’s Problem Gambling Hotline were experiencing problem gambling online. In 2023, that number had increased to 63%. Given the risks, Australia has banned all online in-play betting on live sports events, as well as online slot machines and casino games.  

What makes online gambling so addictive? As Cardus explained in a recent report focused on sports betting, one factor is in-play betting. These kinds of bets have changed online gambling from a game like the lottery to a game more like a slot machine, where you can place bets throughout the game. People can place bets at any time and from anywhere. And when bets can be resolved almost immediately, such as with in-game sports betting, users are more likely to place more bets. Online gambling also gives people the ability to game alone, and to use credit card payments for easy payment.   

Advertising 

Advertising has proven effective in attracting more players and getting them to bet more. But it is also associated with more frequent and riskier gambling. Ontario recognized this problem in part when it banned using athletes, celebrities, social media influencers, and others who would “likely be expected to appeal to minors” in online gambling commercials – unless, that is, the celebrity in the ad reminds you to gamble responsibly. 

The Canadian Mental Health Association has recommended banning all advertising for online gambling because of the negative impact it has on vulnerable people and their families. The Association says more clients at their branches offering problem gambling supports are raising the issue of celebrity endorsements for online gambling. At the very least, the Association recommends that online gambling not be positioned or depicted as a risk-free activity. They note as well that surveys show that students who self-report betting online increased from 4% in 2019 to 15% in 2021. The connection between advertising and behaviour is why advertising for alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco are strictly regulated. For example, an advertisement for an alcoholic beverage may not show a person drinking it. And when’s the last time you saw a cigarette or tobacco commercial?  

But advertising for sports betting in Canada is very permissive. One analysis estimated that Canadian viewers of a live sports broadcast were exposed to 2.8 references to sports betting every minute and that over 20% of viewing time included some form of gambling reference. In contrast, the United Kingdom and Ireland have ‘whistle-to-whistle’ bans, prohibiting gambling ads from five minutes before the game until five minutes after the game. British regulators have proposed banning gambling logos on jerseys as well.  

Government Response 

As noted previously, governments seem to have a financial incentive to allow the gambling industry to thrive – at least if you focus on the direct revenue and ignore the social cost. Gambling companies, too, have such an incentive, and so they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising. Even though advertisements often mention ‘responsible gambling,’ they still contribute to gambling addiction and related harms. Provincial governments have a responsibility to limit the effects of online gambling on their citizens.  

As we noted in the previous article, since 1892, Canada has permitted limited forms of and forums for gambling, including raffles held for charities, betting on horse races, or games of chance at fairs or exhibitions. Recent legal changes have blown this wide open, making it easy to gamble anywhere and at any time. A strong case can be made for returning to much broader and stricter limits on gambling. That case would build on the points made in our previous article about the immorality, injustice, and harm of gambling – balanced against the prudential limits of what governments can achieve and the difficulties and costs of enforcing any law. We can leave that aside for now, however, and look for opportunities to take meaningful action on this policy issue today. 

A good starting point in our current political context would be to ban advertising for online gambling, or at least severely restrict it. In 2023, four Ontario NDP MPPs introduced a bill that would have prohibited the promotion of online gambling sites through advertising. While such a bill would not directly restrict gambling, it would reduce the promotion of an activity that is harmful to many Ontarians, and to which young people and people with mental health challenges are particularly susceptible. The bill did not pass before this year’s election, but we hope it will be reintroduced.  

The evidence against online gambling advertising is clear and restricting it makes sense. But will the government be willing to restrict it and potentially see its revenue decrease? Stay tuned for further developments in the upcoming months.