Donate Tell your MP
Home·The Issue·Youth & young people
The Issue · Youth & young people

The main target of the marketing machine.

Sports-betting ads run during games kids watch, on phones kids hold, in feeds kids scroll. They normalize a behaviour that is anything but harmless.

Underage gambling can start as young as 9 or 10 years old. A primary responsibility of government is to protect children and young people — which is why advertising for tobacco and cannabis is restricted in Canada, and why sports-betting advertising should be too.

Among young adults (18–29) who gambled online in the past year, 69.4% met the criteria for problem gambling. When an addictive behaviour is introduced to a young, developing mind, the addiction develops quickly and becomes very difficult to treat.

Sports betting is also the industry’s gateway. The ads hook people — especially young men — on betting platforms, and once they have signed up, operators steer them toward their far more addictive online casino games.

Keep reading

Read the child gambling brief or the crisis of masculinity brief below, the full case against gambling advertising, or browse the research and reports.

Campaign brief

Children and youth are gambling, encouraged by the ads that target them.

Why Canada needs to stop gambling advertising.

The problem

Since single-game sports betting became legal in Canada in 2021, ads for betting apps have become part of everyday life for kids. Sports-betting ads run during the games that kids play and watch, on the phones that kids hold, and in the feeds that kids scroll. They normalize a behaviour that is anything but harmless. Ontario started licensing online gambling platforms in 2022 and turned every smartphone into a betting platform — for sports betting and for online casino betting. Kids are legally barred from opening betting accounts, but that hasn’t stopped the ads from reaching them and shaping how normal gambling feels.

It is hard to explain the problem and the growing crisis any more succinctly than two pediatricians and family medicine practitioners and addiction specialists did in their September 2025 article “Protecting Canada’s youth from the risks of exposure to gambling advertising”:1 “Such advertising insidiously normalizes a harmful activity, and children are being exposed, to their detriment. Despite official age restrictions for participating in gambling and using betting platforms, Canada’s youth are being harmed.”

What the research shows

  • In CAMH’s most recent Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, based on data collected from November 2022 to June 2023, 8% of students in grades 7 to 12 reported gambling online in the past year.2
  • Even before Ontario started to licence online gambling platforms, there was evidence that online gambling was a problem for youth. A 2012–2013 survey of teens aged 13 to 19 across Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador found that 42% had gambled in the previous three months, and youth who gambled online showed more serious problem-gambling symptoms than those who gambled in person.3
  • A national survey conducted in late 2024 found that among young adults aged 18 to 29 who gambled online (1 in 3), 69.4% met the criteria for problem gambling. Nearly one in four (23.5%) reported serious harm, including drained savings, rising credit card debt, and serious impacts on emotional wellbeing.4
  • The stakes are high: research from Norway found gambling addiction was a leading cause of death by suicide among people diagnosed with the disorder, and a UK study found problem gambling raised the risk of suicide for 16- to 24-year-olds ninefold in men and nearly fivefold in women. Young people with problem-gambling behaviours should be considered at risk for suicidality.5, 6
  • The Canadian Paediatric Society notes that underage gambling in Canada can start in children as young as 9 or 10 years old.7

Why kids are especially at risk

Children’s and teens’ brains are still developing, which makes them more drawn to risk-taking and more easily shaped by constant exposure to gambling messages. Doctors warn that this normalizes a harmful behaviour at a vulnerable age, and that the habits formed now can follow kids into adulthood.1, 8

Age verification doesn’t work

The gambling industry points out that minors cannot legally open accounts on licensed platforms. That’s true as far as it goes, but it’s not the same as saying kids can’t reach the gambling platforms. Kids reach betting sites through other routes: masking their location with a VPN, using unlicensed offshore sites that don’t verify age at all, or simply using a parent’s or sibling’s card or account. The Responsible Gambling Council has partnered with the Ontario Provincial Police specifically because underage online gambling is an active, ongoing and urgent problem.8, 9 Age verification reduces risk, but it doesn’t eliminate exposure and the normalization and promotion of a harmful activity. That’s why banning the advertising itself, not just the account sign-up, is the more effective safeguard.

A way forward

  • Ban gambling advertising the same way Canada already bans tobacco and cannabis advertising: no lifestyle advertising, no testimonials or endorsements, no sponsorship promotion, and no ads that can be seen or heard by young people, in any medium.10
  • Adopt universal, public-health approaches to prevent gambling harm, including strong federal legislation rather than leaving this to a patchwork of provincial rules, since gambling companies and broadcasts cross provincial lines.
  • Support Bill S‑211, which has passed in the Senate and second reading in the House of Commons and is now before a House of Commons committee, and which would create a national framework to regulate sports betting advertising.8, 11
  • Sign and ratify the Council of Europe Macolin Convention Against Competition Manipulation, which empowers signatory governments to conduct preventive education that conveys warnings about the harms associated with gambling products and links to a community of “best practice” and which directs states to ban bets on sports where players under the age of 18 are involved.

Sources

  1. Charlebois, S., & Kelly, S. “Protecting Canada’s youth from the risks of exposure to gambling advertising.” CMAJ, September 8, 2025; 197 (29) E918–E919. DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.251227.
  2. Boak, A., & Hamilton, H. A. The mental health and well-being of Ontario students, 1991–2023: findings from the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS). Toronto: CAMH; 2024.
  3. Elton-Marshall, T., Leatherdale, S. T., & Turner, N. E. “An examination of internet and land-based gambling among adolescents in three Canadian provinces: results from the Youth Gambling Survey (YGS).” BMC Public Health 2016;16:277.
  4. Young, M. M., Tuico, K. A., Baxter, C. M., et al. “Online Gambling Among Young Canadian Adults: A Call to Action.” Prepared by Greo Evidence Insights & Mental Health Research Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction; 2025 (national survey fielded October 24–November 12, 2024, n=7,960).
  5. Kristensen, J. H., Baravelli, C. M., Leino, T., et al. “Association between gambling disorder and suicide mortality: a comparative cohort study using Norwegian health registry data.” The Lancet Regional Health – Europe 2024;48:101127. Cited in CMAJ 2025;197(29):E918–9.
  6. Wardle, H., & McManus, S. “Suicidality and gambling among young adults in Great Britain: results from a cross-sectional online survey.” The Lancet Public Health 2021;6:e39–49. Cited in CMAJ 2025;197(29):E918–9.
  7. Canadian Paediatric Society. “Teen gambling.” Caring for Kids, reviewed 2024.
  8. Shetty, A. “Senator for Waterloo region wants to ban sports betting ads that lead to ‘addictive behaviour’ in youth.” CBC News, September 10, 2025.
  9. Responsible Gambling Council, in partnership with the Ontario Provincial Police. “The uncomfortable truth about young adult gambling: why Ontario parents need to act now.” 2026.
  10. Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, SC 1997, c 13 (bans lifestyle advertising, testimonials, sponsorship promotion, and advertising that appeals to or can be seen or heard by young persons); Cannabis Act, SC 2018, c 16.
  11. Bill S‑211, National Framework on Sports Betting Advertising Act. Passed third reading in the Senate on October 21, 2025; passed a House of Commons vote on April 22, 2026 (291–28) and is now before the House Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
Campaign brief

A crisis of masculinity.

Boys and men are disproportionately affected by gambling addictions. According to the November 2025 survey by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), with Greo Evidence Insights and Mental Health Research Canada, boys and men bet on sports and gamble online at a much higher rate than women. 43.7% of male participants in the survey gambled more often than is recommended by health authorities compared to 28.1% of women; 14.6% of men met the criteria for problem gambling while only 6.3% of women did so; and 6.5% of men reported high levels of gambling-related harms compared to 3.4% of women.1 Research from other countries confirms this.2 The suicide rates for men addicted to gambling are significantly higher than those for women, reflecting their much higher rates of participation and addiction.3

While the determinations are complex, and gambling is by no means the only challenge boys and men face today,4 one factor is the traditional culture of sports as a “manly practice”: many boys and men believe that their gendered experience in sports gives them betting expertise. It affects both those who play sports and those who only watch. We hear over and over again from athletes, parents, coaches, athletic directors and researchers that male athletes bet continually and compulsively. Some teams encourage it as a form of team bonding.

Prevalence rates of gambling harm have been estimated between 6 and 14% among male professional athletes, significantly higher than general population rates. Sadly, research on gambling behaviour among elite female athletes remains in its infancy.5

At the same time, as public opportunities for sport and physical activity are immiserated and “pay for play” increasingly makes those activities less accessible for the majority of Canadians, genuine participation in sports has declined. The sports-betting industry encourages boys and men to realize their athletic aspirations through gambling — not vigorous, embodied physical activity — in a fruitless pursuit of unattainable goals.

A way forward

Addiction to gambling is a public-health problem that will not resolve on its own. As the international research and major health organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Canadian Medical Association make clear, the most effective measure governments can take to reduce the problem is to restrict the advertising, marketing and promotion. The Parliament of Canada must pass Bill S‑211, An Act respecting a national framework on sports-betting advertising.

In addition, to address and mitigate the particular crisis sports betting has created for boys and men, we urge the federal and provincial/territorial governments to:

  • Commission and fund critical research on the gendering of gambling addiction through sports betting and online gambling
  • Increase collaboration between public-health agencies such as Health Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association and sports bodies such as Sport Canada, Sport Integrity Canada, the Coaching Association of Canada as well as university, college and school sporting associations and provincial/territorial ministries of education
  • Conduct public education about the risks and harms of sports betting; in particular, they should contest the gendered normalization of sports betting, with messages such as “There’s nothing manly about losing your scholarship/job/relationship to sports betting”
  • Train coaches and teachers about how to address the prevalence of sports betting on their teams
  • Accept and implement the recommendations of the Future of Sport in Canada Commission to restore and increase public opportunities for broadly based participation in sport, physical education and physical activity

We also urge governments to fund research and critically examine the growth of sports betting and online gambling among girls and women. The fact that girls and women present comparatively lower levels of participation, addiction and suicide is no reason not to address their vulnerabilities in this crisis.

Sources

  1. Young, M. M., Tuico, K. A., Baxter, C. M., Dapo-Famodu, A., Sherk, A., Gagnon, F., Cooper, M., Hlavecek, C., & Major, S. (2025). “Online Gambling Among Young Canadian Adults: A Call to Action.” Prepared by Greo Evidence Insights & Mental Health Research Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
  2. See, for example, Wardle, H., Degenhardt, L., Marionneau, V., et al. “The Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling.” The Lancet Public Health, published online October 24, 2024.
  3. Kristensen, J. H., Baravelli, C. M., Leino, T., Pallesen, S., Griffiths, M. D., & Erevik, E. K. “Association between gambling disorder and suicide mortality: a comparative cohort study using Norwegian health registry data.” The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 2025; 48: 101127. Published online November 11, 2024.
  4. See, for example, Rachel Giese, Boys: What It Means to Become a Man (Seal Press, 2018).
  5. McGee, D., Bowles, H., Constandt, B., & Jacobs, K. Gambling-related harms among elite athletes: critical insights on prevalence, treatment and harm prevention (University of Bath and Ghent University, April 2026).

It doesn’t start with a bet.
It starts with an ad.

Tell your MP to pass Bill S‑211 — it takes a minute.

Tell your MP The full case