This story is part of a CBC News series examining the public health impacts of online gambling.
For T.S., a 22-year-old Ontario man recovering from a gambling problem, widespread advertising for online casinos and betting during sports broadcasts is “frustrating.”
“Imagine you’re an alcoholic and there was a beer ad during every show you watched,” he told CBC News.
His gambling started three years ago as a fun Friday night activity with friends, but escalated.
One night last year he found himself locked inside a bathroom, losing it all — having bet away $14,000.
T.S., who CBC has agreed not to name, says he quickly sought treatment and hasn’t gambled since. But during his spree, all those ads fuelled him to gamble more.
“It certainly … would trigger me to go back and place another bet.”
Politicians in Ottawa are moving to curb the widespread advertising currently seen across sports broadcasts, social media and online video games.
Sports gambling ads are everywhere. There’s a push to change that
The federal standing committee on Canadian heritage meets next week to vote on Bill S-211, a law that proposes to rein in the ads across the country, amid new findings of increased addiction and gambling-related suicides in Ontario.
Problem gambling jumps, suicides triple in Ontario after expansion of online casinos
A new analysis for CBC News shows Canadians continue to be bombarded with betting promotions during sports broadcasts.
CBC partnered with the University of Bristol to assess the 2026 NHL playoffs to count the numbers of logos and gambling messages.
Across seven televised games featuring Canadian teams, viewers faced 3,000 gambling messages. Ninety-five per cent of those instances included no information about harm reduction or age restrictions.
Raffaello Rossi, the lead researcher and a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Bristol, says by reviewing every second of the game, his team found ads or logos appearing two to three times every minute.
Ads appeared on stadium rinks, jerseys, helmets and during commercial breaks.
Researcher found thousands of gambling messages in NHL games
“Advertising via logos around the stadium, on the jerseys, on the helmets is much more efficient, because you’ve got a lot of knock-on effects,” he said.
“For example, if a news broadcast shows the highlights of a match, you will see these logos all across the sporting event. If somebody shares something on their social media, you will see those logos.”
He says viewers are additionally seeing the emergence of ads for prediction markets.
The new analysis also confirms little has changed since a CBC Marketplace study with Rossi’s team in 2024 revealed viewers were bombarded with thousands of ads and product placements in five NHL games (up to three per minute).
Rossi says that’s because Canada is behind other countries in passing legislation to curb gambling advertising.
“Multiple countries since then have introduced quite strict regulations and restrictions on gambling marketing in sports. So, for example, in Belgium and Italy and Spain, there’s almost entire bans on sponsorship during sports.”
If Bill S-211 is approved at committee next week, the legislation — which has already passed the Senate — would be presented for a third and final reading in the House of Commons.
“It is a national framework around sports betting advertising,” says the bill’s sponsor, Bardish Chagger, the MP for Waterloo.
She says limits on advertising are a way to address emerging harms, including growing rates of gambling addiction and suicide deaths, like those witnessed in Ontario after the province allowed private online casinos and sports betting in 2022.
MP Bardish Chagger is sponsoring a bill launched by Sen. Marty Deacon to restrict gambling ads. The standing committee on Canadian heritage is set to vote on the bill in late October. (Dave Seglins/CBC)
“People are being impacted in a very harmful way. They are losing their livelihoods, they’re losing their homes, they’re losing their savings, they’re losing their lives,” Chagger told CBC News.
Sen. Marty Deacon first spearheaded the bill in the Senate and says it is time Canada tackles some of the negative public impacts of online gambling.
“These ads are ubiquitous across the country, especially in national broadcasts that are sponsored by betting companies, with logos plastered across broadcast desks, arenas and fields; this encourages Canadians in every province to gamble, even in those provinces who have held back,” she wrote in an email to CBC News.
“We know where this is going, but we’re allowing it to happen anyway.”
Sen. Marty Deacon first spearheaded the bill in the Senate, where it has passed. (Twitter)
Current Canadian regulations are supposed to restrict gambling advertising targeting minors, at-risk people and gamblers who have asked to be excluded from the sites.
But the code doesn’t go as far as some European countries, which have outright banned televised promotions on sportswear and during events.
Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.K., France and Germany have imposed time-of-day bans on gambling advertisements, restricting them to after 9 p.m.
In France, companies have to get approval for their promotional strategies from the regulatory authority and submit an annual action plan to curb addiction.
While Canada’s Bill S-211 isn’t prescriptive, it asks the federal government to acknowledge the harms of online gambling and hold consultations to craft stricter regulations.
Toronto Maple Leafs celebrate a goal flanked by advertising for Jackpot City online casino. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press)
Chagger says she hopes her bill will eventually lead to a ban on gambling promotions on sportswear and during live sporting events, outlaw ads during certain hours and prohibit celebrities and athletes from collaborating with gambling companies.
Ontario and Alberta oppose the federal bill.
In a letter to the federal government, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally said the bill creates a two-tier regulatory system and threatens future profits.
Ontario’s Attorney General Doug Downey wrote to the federal government earlier this year, saying that the province should be left to regulate ads.
“Ontario has already established comprehensive and modern regulatory framework for online gaming and sports betting, which came into force in 2022. Advertising standards and protections were a central component of this work,” he wrote.
A coalition of a dozen mental health organizations, including the Canadian Mental Health Association and Public Health Physicians of Canada, alongside 28 prominent addictions researchers, have sent submissions to Parliament asking for national action.
“The entire world is grappling with this in some way,” said Matthew Young, a leading gambling researcher and senior research associate at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
“The real challenge right now is that we have a regulatory regime that is built upon physical borders, but a product that doesn’t respect physical borders.”
Addictions researcher Matthew Young is lobbying for limits on gambling ads and better monitoring of harms. (Ousama Abdel Rahman/CBC)
“The argument that it’s provincial and territorial jurisdiction was all fine and well until ads from Ontario blanketed the nation and then suddenly New Brunswick had to deal with ads from Ontario.”
The Canadian Gaming Association (CGA), a national trade group representing 80 companies that run casinos and online sports betting, has filed its own submission opposing the plan to regulate gambling ads across the country.
Instead, the CGA wants the government to spend money on assessing the “underlying health challenges” of gambling addiction, and let provinces decide advertising standards for themselves.”
CBC Marketplace 2024 study of gambling ads
“Unlike alcohol and cannabis, online gambling platforms, both regulated and unregulated, are readily accessible with just a few clicks. In this environment, advertising plays an important role in directing consumers toward regulated operators that are subject to stringent oversight, consumer protection requirements and responsible gambling standards,” the CGA submission states.
Recovering gambler T.S. says advertising for online casino games should be banned or require warnings, similar to rules for other addictive substances, like tobacco and alcohol.
“I think similar to cigarettes, you could put labelling on the apps themselves, as well as the ads: ‘Here’s what happened to Terry when he spent half his life savings on blackjack one night.'”
Are you, or someone you know, suffering from gambling? Support is available.
