A letter to every Ontario MPP.

April 26, 2026 · sent to every Member of Provincial Parliament

Dear [Name of MPP],

Subject: Stop Harmful Gambling Advertising

As parents, educators, and citizens of Ontario, we write with deep respect for the responsibility you hold and profound anger and frustration about the harm created by the regime of sports betting that currently exists and is growing virtually unchecked in our province.

Since legalization in 2021, sports betting has moved from the margins to the centre of everyday life. It is now woven into the broadcasts children and youth watch, the jerseys they admire, the social media feeds they scroll, and the conversations they hear in school hallways and family living rooms. What was once an occasional, adult-only activity has become a normalized part of being a “real” sports fan — including, very clearly, for minors. Sports betting is not a ‘harmless form of entertainment’. We have watched our sons and daughters slide into dangerous patterns of gambling, chasing losses on their phones late at night, hiding debts, and withdrawing from school, friends, and family. We have seen the panic and shame on their faces when they finally admit how much money they have lost and how trapped they feel. We have cleaned out savings, taken on our children's debt, sat with them in emergency rooms, and supported them through suicidal thoughts that were triggered or intensified by gambling losses. We carry the burden emotionally and financially while the companies profiting from these addictions saturate our public and private spaces with cheerful, upbeat advertising.

Since legalization, the percentage of Canadians experiencing ‘problem gambling’ or addiction has grown from 1.3 to 9.9%. Greo Evidence Insights, Mental Health Research Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction reported in November 2025 that 32% of young adults (18 to 29) reported gambling online and that among them, 69.4% met the criteria for problem gambling and 23.5% reported experiencing a high level of gambling-related harms. The unrestricted advertising of sports betting in Ontario is fueling a public health crisis.

The World Health Organization, Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Mental Health Association, Mental Health Research Canada, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, and a host of other public health bodies have called for an end to the advertising of gambling as a way to reduce the harms.

The Canadian Pediatric Society has found that underage gambling is common in Canada and can start as young as 9 or 10 years of age. The Canadian Safety Council has also designated gambling addiction a community safety and crime prevention issue.

The health science research is clear – the rapid growth and normalization of gambling have created a public health crisis. The ads fuel this crisis, the costs of which are conservatively estimated to be two or three times the tax revenue generated from the gambling companies.

Adults in Ontario have the legal right to gamble. But there is a critical difference between allowing an activity and aggressively promoting it with minimal guardrails. The sheer volume, placement, and style of sports-betting advertising in Ontario — especially during live sports and across digital platforms popular with youth — constitute a powerful, engineered effort to groom the next generation into addicted lifelong customers.

Once the gambling companies have this new generation of bettors hooked, they will move to getting them hooked on on-line casino gambling, where there are even larger profits to be made and greater harms to be inflicted.

These ads are designed using sophisticated psychological techniques to trigger impulsive decisions, create illusions of expertise and control, and make betting look like a normal, exciting, low-risk extension of fandom. They feature celebrities and sports heroes our kids admire. They emphasize big wins, social status, and belonging, while quietly ignoring the reality of mounting losses, debt, and addiction. When we sit down to watch a game, we are forced to watch our children be treated as future revenue streams.

We are not asking you to remove every individual's right to gamble. We are asking you to draw a firm line on advertising — to recognize that no responsible government should allow an industry built on addiction and financial loss to advertise itself freely. We already accept a virtual ban on advertising tobacco and cannabis because we acknowledge their risks and do not want companies using mass marketing to recruit vulnerable new users. Online gambling ads belong in the same category.

International research indicates that the most effective way to reduce the harms of gambling is to restrict the advertising.

The recently introduced Bill 107, Stop Harmful Gambling Advertising Act would significantly restrict the advertising of online gambling in Ontario. We urge you to support it.

The gambling industry and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario will argue that existing “responsible gaming” messages are sufficient. Yet these messages ring hollow when they appear in microscopic type below prominent odds boosts, “free” bets, and celebrity endorsements. They in effect ‘blame the victim’ when the problem has been government created and a comprehensive public health approach is needed. The gambling industry and the AGCO will also warn of economic consequences. What they never acknowledge are the economic and human costs we pay: the lost tuition, the family loans that will never be repaid, the mental-health and health-care burdens, the time spent in crisis instead of in school or work, and the pain of parents watching their child be consumed by an addiction that was actively sold to them.

You have a choice. You can wait for more tragedies, more ruined finances, more families in crisis. Or you can listen to the experience of parents, medical bodies, and researchers now, and choose to reduce harm before the current generation of young people is even further entrenched in gambling.

Our children deserve to enjoy sports without being groomed into lifelong addicts. They deserve to grow up in a province where their vulnerabilities are not treated as a business opportunity.

As a primary responsibility for action to protect children and young people rests with governments, we are counting on you to help make that Ontario a reality. Please pass Bill 107.

Respectfully,

Robin Campbell
Bruce Kidd
For the Campaign to Ban Ads for Gambling · BanAdsForGambling.ca