Governments must rein in online gambling before it’s too late, say public health experts

Adam Pettle recognized he had a gambling problem as a teenager when he began to hide his behaviour.

Pettle felt powerless to stop and struggled with his mental health. Eventually, the debts he accumulated led him to sell his family’s home. 

“I just reached the point where I was completely defeated. I have such a beautiful family that I love so dearly, and I thought the only way out would be if they could cash in my life insurance,” said Pettle. 

The rise of online gambling — such as through virtual casinos, bingo and sports betting — allows people to gamble anytime and anywhere. Pettle says it worsened his situation.

“[Addiction] is a progressive illness in my opinion,” Pettle, 51, who lives in Toronto, told The Current‘s host Matt Galloway. 

“It progressed so rapidly when I had a casino sportsbook, a racetrack in my pocket 24 hours a day.”  

As the gambling industry continues to grow globally with the rise of online gambling, a recent report from the medical journal The Lancet’s commission on gambling calls is calling on governments to approach gambling as a public health issue. 

Malcolm Sparrow, one of the authors of the report, says this will put gambling in the same category as alcohol and tobacco, which are identified by the World Health Organization as issues of the public interest. 

“[They’re] things that we probably mostly won’t prohibit entirely because a lot of people enjoy them, but where there is [an] established link with detrimental health, financial, employment, et cetera.” 

According to the report, gambling is linked to a variety of harmful intergenerational effects that extend beyond the individual, and can cause financial ruin, impact relationships, and increase the risks of suicide and domestic violence. 

The authors also argue that addressing harms related to gambling is crucial in order to prevent widespread damage to people’s health and well-being, and calls on governments around the world to take action.

Impact on Canada 

Statistics Canada estimates that in 2018, nearly two-thirds of Canadians gambled in the past year. The data estimates that about 300,000 Canadians were at moderate-to-severe risk of developing a gambling problem, where gambling starts to negatively affect a person’s life.

Single-event sports betting was legalized in Canada in 2021, and in the following year, Ontario became the first province in Canada to legalize online gambling, allowing a regulated market where private gambling companies can operate. 

Other Canadian regions, such as British Columbia, manage regulated gambling through provincial websites.

Since online gambling was legalized, there has been a rise in sports betting ads on various media platforms and in sports stadiums, with one investigation by CBC revealing that gambling messages filled up to 21 per cent of each broadcast on average.  

“A lot of youth watch these sports games … they’re being programmed, essentially, to want to gamble,” said Nigel Turner, a scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. 

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For the fiscal year 2023-24, iGaming Ontario, the provincial agency that manages online gambling, reported $63 billion wagered on the platform and $2.4 billion in gaming revenue.

Turner says there’s been a rise in the number of monthly average calls to the Ontario Problem Gambling helpline. 

Before the pandemic from January 2016 to February 2020, there were 131.1 calls to the helpline per month. After online gambling was legalized in Ontario, the number of calls increased to 184.1 calls per month from April 2022 to January 2023, with the majority now related to online gambling. 

He also says younger men are making up a larger portion of the calls.

People typically reach out when they’re in crisis — often related to the consequences of losing large amounts of money that affects their mental health, relationships with others and career, Turner said.

Turner questions whether current efforts by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the provincial agency responsible for regulating gambling, is enough to protect the well-being of its customers. 

In a statement, the AGCO said, in part, “Regulated iGaming operators in Ontario proactively intervened an average of almost 600 times per month to reassess patrons’ risk levels, to contact players directly to attempt to reduce potential risk, or to limit or exclude players from gambling altogether to prevent harm.” 

Changing the framing 

The Lancet report calls for immediate and co-ordinated action from national and local governments, as well as intergovernmental agencies like the United Nations. 

The report has seven recommendations, which include: 

• A call for governments to prioritize health and well-being over competing economic interests when setting policy, and to recognize that gambling is a public health issue.
• Gambling regulation in all countries, regardless of legal status, to reduce exposure and availability of gambling, provide affordable and universal support and treatment for gambling harms, and to de-normalize gambling. 
• Well-resourced, independent and adequately empowered regulators in jurisdictions where online gambling is allowed to protect public health and well-being, including regulations that enforce minimum age restrictions backed by mandatory identification. 

Turner, who was not involved in The Lancet’s research, says that approaching problem gambling as a public health issue allows it to be viewed as a societal problem, rather than being solely focused on individuals.

He also notes that with an increasingly globalized gambling industry, a co-ordinated approach on addressing gambling’s harms across jurisdictions is required.

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In Canada, the increase in sports betting ads have prompted the Senate-initiated Bill S-269, which seeks to create a national framework for regulating them, similar to how tobacco and alcohol ads are regulated. The bill has passed its third reading but is waiting to be read in the House of Commons. 

Pettle, now in recovery with the help of his family and therapy, remains deeply concerned. 

“This is an illness that is genetic and affects generations, and I’m terrified for the next generation,” he said.