Thirteen recommendations for the future of sport.

March 6, 2025

Submission to the Future of Sport in Canada Commission

Dear Commissioner Maisonneuve and Special Advisors Classen and Pipe:

We write to share concerns about threats to the future of sport in Canada created by the dramatic growth of gambling and the tsunami of ads for gambling that has followed the legalization of sports betting by Parliament in 2021.

We write as sportspersons deeply committed to the ideals of safe, healthy, fair, inclusive and educational sports. We are Olympians, parents and grandparents of Olympians, coaches and physical educators, sports scholars and journalists.

In our submissions to Parliament, the Ontario Alcohol and Gaming Commission, boards of health, municipal councils, school boards and other public bodies, we have stressed the way that the proliferation of ads for sports betting, the use of smart phones for betting (a casino in your pocket), and the deliberate manipulation of online technologies by the betting companies, intensifies the mental health crisis.

Gambling has been classified as a non-substance-related addictive disorder by the American Psychiatric Association.

Mental Health Research Canada reported in June 2024 that the risk of problem gambling in Canada is 7% among adults, 15% among youth 18 to 34. That's more than a million Canadians. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health reports that for every person addicted to gambling, another 6–8 are negatively affected. The Canadian Pediatric Society has noted that underage gambling is common in Canada and can start in children as young as 9 or 10 years old. Worryingly, such prevalence estimates are based upon self-report, so that the actual numbers may well be higher.

Gambling is particularly rampant among young men. Coaches and athletic directors report that athletes are gambling away their tuition, meal and rent money. The Canadian Safety Council considers gambling addiction a community safety and crime prevention issue. The Council has stated that addiction to gambling is linked to a range of serious personal and social harms such as depression and suicide, bankruptcy, family breakup, domestic abuse, assault, fraud, theft, and even homelessness. These effects can be devastating to the individual as well as their friends, family, workplace, and community.

It's a worldwide problem too. The respected British medical journal, The Lancet, calls gambling ‘an expanding public health threat’, and concludes that ‘governments have paid too little attention to gambling harms and have not done enough to prevent or mitigate them.’ It also documents how the gambling industry has manipulated digital platforms to make them even more addictive. It calls for ‘stronger policy and regulatory controls focused on harm prevention and the protection of public health; prohibitions or restrictions on access, promotion, marketing, and sponsorship; the provision of affordable, universal support and treatment for gambling harms; and international coordination.’

The relationship between advertising and increased gambling is clearly evident in Canada. The 7% of Canadians estimated by Mental Health Research Canada to present a high risk of problem gambling is more than four times the 1.6% that Stats Can found in 2018 when there was no advertising. The international research confirms the relationship between advertising and the increased volume and the intensity of sports betting. In response, a growing number of countries (e.g. Spain, Italy, Denmark) have banned or severely restricted the ads.

Betting poisons the culture of sports. The message from the gambling industry and its influencers in the media is that ‘you can't enjoy sports without betting on sports’. The cascade of ads, the uncritical encouragement of betting by seemingly objective sportscasters, and the regulators' and industry's messages to ‘bet responsibly’ all normalize betting as an integral part of sports. There is a complete absence of critical commentary about the negative effects of gambling on the sports culture. As opportunities for healthy sport and physical activity are increasingly privatized under the banner of ‘pay for play’, there are fewer positive messages about the importance of inexpensive and accessible public sports.

Because it can all be done on a phone or tablet, and increasingly it invites ‘prop’ bets (i.e. bets on micro events during a game, such as whether a batter swings at the next pitch in baseball or who will score the first goal in hockey or when a referee will call a penalty in the first half of a soccer game), betting disembodies sports as an interactive form of physical activity. Although the precise determinations are still to be shown, we are convinced that the betting culture discourages active participation in sports, and prevents communities coming together to provide and strengthen opportunity.

The focus on jackpots and payouts furthers the instrumental culture of ‘winning is everything’. Betting accentuates the ‘win at all costs’ mentality that stands in complete contradiction to the ideal of intrinsically rewarding, educationally rich, ‘sport for sport's sake’, and the values of respect for one's opponent/co-player and their cultures.

Betting invites abuse towards athletes who fail to realize bettors' targets. The proliferation of ‘prop bets’, promoted to sensationalize betting, undermines the integrity of games, because they provide incentives to athletes and officials to manipulate play in the interest of those bets. Betting and ‘prop bets’ encourage some athletes, coaches and officials to manipulate the competitions for illegal personal gain. Despite the efforts of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, the Canadian Olympic Committee and other sports organizations, there is little understanding of the pressures athletes, coaches and officials experience to manipulate the competitions for gamblers' payoffs. In the US, 21 states prohibit betting on in-state college and university teams and ‘prop betting’.

Inadequate provincial/territorial regulation. With the legalization of sports betting, the federal government has left the regulation of the gambling industry to the provinces and territories. But if the case of Ontario is any guide, provincial/territorial regulators have been completely captured by the industry.

The Ontario regulator, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), does little to police the ads and other practices that encourage problem gambling and addiction. Although its regulations stipulate that ads cannot employ influencers who ‘would likely be expected to appeal to minors’, actors with extensive youth film credits and thus appeal to youth, such as Jamie Foxx and Jon Lovitz, are used regularly. In response to a complaint by the Campaign to Ban Ads for Gambling, the AGCO refused to take action, rationalizing that ‘the potential appeal of celebrities is dynamic and varies by individual.’

Instead of the ‘public health approach’ recommended by international health experts, the AGCO acquiesces in the gambling industry's ‘responsible gambling’ approach that acknowledges the harms from gambling in small type at the bottom of ads while placing the entire responsibility for that harm upon the individual bettor.

Neither the AGCO nor the Ministry of Health funds public service ads depicting the risks and harms of gambling as was done during the height of the anti-tobacco campaigns.

The Ontario government enthusiastically supports the gambling industry. In 2024, it sought the approval of the Ontario Court of Appeal for expanding the reach of Ontario gambling operators into the US and other countries. It keeps taxes on wagers low (22.5%, compared to 40% in most US states and 51% in neighbouring New York). It has eliminated funding for research into problem gambling, and provides no new funds for treatment and education.

If Canada is to restore the integrity of Canadian sport, ensure safe sport, and strengthen participation and the quality of opportunities, it must curtail the influence of sports betting.

For all these reasons, we urge that the Future of Sport in Canada Commission make the following recommendations:

To the federal government

1. Ban ads for gambling, in the same way and for the same health reasons that Parliament previously banned ads for tobacco. The CRTC must insist that all broadcasters refrain from promoting sports betting and develop and show a significant number of anti-gambling ads.
2. Include research-based information about the risks and harms of sports betting, alongside content on safe sport, anti-doping, anti-manipulation and the benefits of active sport and physical activity, in all educational modules about the ethics of sport in Canada.
3. Ratify the Macolin Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competition, and insert prohibitions against sports manipulation and threats against athletes and other participants into the Criminal Code of Canada. The amendments to the Criminal Code should take into account the possibility that athletes are victims — via addiction, blackmail or other forms of threat — and should therefore target all those engaged in manipulation, not just athletes, and especially those who coerce manipulation.
4. Amend the funding formulas for members of the National Sports Organizations and Multi Sports Organizations (e.g. the Athlete Assistance and the Sport Support Program) to prohibit all members of the NSOs and MSOs from betting on any of the Olympic, Paralympic, amateur and school, college or university sports; and promoting or acting as ambassadors for any form of gambling.
5. Undertake research-based measures to increase accessible and equitable opportunities for all Canadians to participate in sports and coordinate their implementation with the provincial and territorial governments, municipalities, and schools and universities.

To the provincial and territorial governments

6. Ban the sports betting companies within their jurisdictions from accepting bets upon the Olympic, Paralympic, amateur, and school, college and university sports.
7. Ban the use of ‘prop bets’.
8. Require on-line bettors and gamblers to use debit cards, and prohibit the use of credit cards.
9. Include education about the risks and harms of sports betting in elementary and secondary curricula in all schools.
10. Ensure the transparent and impartial governance and management of the agencies that regulate gambling and sports betting within their jurisdictions. Regulators should be at complete arms-length from the industry, and their boards should include health professionals and researchers.
11. Tax sports betting at 40% of gross revenue or higher, and allocate the full proceeds of those taxes to the treatment of those suffering from the harms, research and educational programs, and the strengthening of accessible sports programs.
12. Work in coordination with the federal government, municipalities and schools, colleges and universities on the provision of accessible and equitable opportunities for all Canadians to participate in sports.

To the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, and school, college and university sports programs

13. Include educational modules about the harms and risks of sports betting within all educational modules about the ethics of sport in Canada, including those on safe sport, anti-doping, anti-manipulation, etc.

Respectfully submitted,

Bruce Kidd and John Sewell
Co-chairs, Campaign to Ban Ads for Gambling

The submission's sources include the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5; Mental Health Research Canada's Poll 20 (June 2024); the Canadian Pediatric Society; CAMH's submission on Bill S-269; the Canada Safety Council; The Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling (October 2024); Thomas et al., “Protecting children and young people from contemporary marketing for gambling”, Health Promotion International (2023); and reporting by CBC News, The Athletic, The Guardian, and The Globe and Mail on bettor abuse of athletes.