With increased focus on gambling-suicide links in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, and with strategizing at the federal level to reduce suicides overall, there is pressure on lawmakers to rethink Canada’s approach to GRS [gambling-related suicide]. Questions remain about whether provinces have done enough to track and prevent deaths.
Survey data released last week by the charitable research organization Mental Health Research Canada suggests 60 per cent of people at high risk of gambling problems reported that ads influenced them to gamble more.
The widespread cultural acceptance of legalized gambling is connected to viewing gambling as a personal choice, neglecting the addictive nature of the heavily-promoted gaming options and ignoring the dire financial and mental health consequences for those who become addicted — a view pushed through marketing and industry lobbying efforts.
This underlying risk seems at odds with the continued expansion and availability of legalized gambling across Canada, including legal single-sports betting in every province, two recently-opened casino resorts in the Greater Toronto Area, and more than 80 new legal online casinos in Ontario through its iGaming Ontario provincial agency.
They could start by banning advertising of sports betting.
You can’t watch any sport for 2 minutes without having some sports betting site shoved in your face.
I would say the best way of dealing with this is to treat all gambling (including the flippin’ lotteries) like tobacco. Absolutely no advertising allowed. People who still want to find it will.
Agreed. Even the big lotto 649 ads in my area are just so in your face like “what are you doing? Don’t you know a life of luxury and private yachts is as easy as buying a ticket”
Not just sports with gambling ads, everything! I don’t watch sports and get gambling ads all the the time on YouTube.
In the States, I was getting ads during election season letting me know that I could bet on the outcome of the election. It’s madness.
… so how much did you win or lose? I’d have won, because I’m from the US and I know how racist and sexist people are down there and I was betting on D-Bag from day 1. I was blown away when we elected Obama (or “O-Bummer”, as the repubes call him), and I remember thinking that they’ll never allow that to happen again-- especially if it’s also a woman
Not a gambler, I don’t think that money would feel right anyhow. There’s nothing about a trump presidency that should feel like a win.
And yeah, I grew up hearing sermons about how women should never be in positions of power over men. And then there’s also the deep and abiding racism that’s been with us longer than the idea of democracy. I hoped enough people would see the bigger picture. But no, missed out on my chance to be rich I guess.
The deluge of sports betting ads, including ‘sponsored content,’ is a travesty. And we won’t know the effects on kids growing up in this new ads and access ecosystem for decades. Corporate profits before public health /s
I can’t even listen to the radio without constant ads about either sports betting or online casinos.
Same on podcasts. I don’t even listen to anything related to sports.
The Olympics on CBC were insufferable. All the ads were gambling and ozempic/wegovy ads.
Biggest promoter behind this crap:
They own a lot of sites that push traffic towards gambling. They are full of themselves about how ethical they are but every C level meeting is full of “Do now, ask for forgiveness later” and every ethical rule they have for themselves quite literally only exists to wipe bums. They push CA and US governments hard to allow sports (and later all types of) gambling because they’re basically the professional promoters of gambling.
I worked there at a high level, and even though I didn’t do much during my tenure there, I do feel ashamed for being a part of it all, they’re the worst. They push this ethical gambling website but there is no such thing and they know it because they’ve said so multiple times. It is such a shameful scam, really.
My biggest issue is that almost all forms of gambling in Canada are run by governments, and governments are well aware of problems gambling causes in people’s lives … yet they do sfa about it because of the revenues it adds to gov’t coffers.
Governments should NEVER be directly involved in running casinos, online gambling, lotteries, etc. Make them private AND regulate the fuck out of them.
I agree quite a bit with you, but the new ‘legal’ sports gambling is private (and really under-regulated).
The government has clearly failed to regulate sports gambling advertising enough.
I would guess that sports gambling companies only pay the corporate tax rate. If so, that is bullshit and there should be added tax on gambling profits. This can help fund treatment, research, and awareness-building about problematic gambling
but the new ‘legal’ sports gambling is private
That’s why I said “almost all forms of gambling are regulated by governments”.
Right on. I’m realizing that I think I’ve overestimated sport betting’s current market share in the landscape of Canadian gambling, because 1) I’m into sports and 2) almost everyone seems to agree that sports betting ads too common. They’re still still smaller than land-based casinos, government online gambling, lotteries, etc
yeah that’s all well and good, but prostitution is still against the law. and to think I moved here from the States because I thought this country was “progressive”
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