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With football fans expected to wager billions of dollars on this year’s Super Bowl, experts are urging governments to reduce the public health harms that come with the rapidly growing gambling industry.

The American Gaming Association estimates American fans alone will bet a record $1.39 billion US on this year’s game. The growth is a sign, the AGA said in a news release, of “the continued expansion and enthusiasm around the legal sports betting market.”

That enthusiasm exists in Canada too.

The Canadian government legalized single-event sports betting in 2021 and Ontario legalized online betting in 2022, opening the door to private online gambling companies to operate there.

Some off-shore companies offer betting apps, accessible in most provinces, but they are not regulated.

“Sports betting now is so intertwined with sports as a whole, you can’t watch an entire game without seeing an ad,” said Jeremy Alleyne, 36, a basketball coach near Toronto.

Luke Clark, director of the Centre for Gambling Research at the University of British Columbia, said the legal changes in Canada have quickly shifted to the landscape.

“Those changes also extend to advertising and marketing and they also include the emergence of some new and riskier forms of gambling,” Clark said.

“From a public health perspective, this has been generating a lot of concern.”

‘It consumed my life’

For Theodore Oliver, 27, the emergence of multiple sports betting ads can be triggering, and troubling.

Oliver got into online gambling with poker in his early twenties. It was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and from his home in Saskatoon, he started down a path of addiction that would take over his life in a matter of days.

“It’s so simple to just get on your phone, to open up any of the many apps,” he said in a recent interview.

“It consumed my life. It consumed everything. I thought about it. I dreamt about it.”

Aside from mounting financial losses, Oliver’s physical and mental health deteriorated and his relationships suffered before he sought help for “a seriously destructive problem that had already been harming me, but also the people in my life that I cared about.”

According to a recent report by the Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling, gambling “poses a substantial threat to public health.”

Harms extend beyond financial losses

The report urges governments to do more to mitigate public health harms as the gambling industry continues to grow.

Beyond “financial losses and financial ruin, these harms can include loss of employment, broken relationships, health effects, and crime-related impacts,” the authors write.

“Gambling can heighten the risk of suicidality and domestic violence.”

Heather Wardle, a professor of gambling research and policy at the University of Glasgow and co-chair of the commission said the problems don’t just affect the person gambling, but their families and communities too. With the rise in gambling apps and the proliferation of ads in many jurisdictions, Wardle says governments need to do more to protect public health.

“Prioritize that above any other economic motivation.”

For UBC’s Luke Clark, a major step in Canada would be a limit on ads for gambling apps, which have become an familiar part of the sports landscape for many fans.

In 2024, Ontario brought in restrictions banning celebrities from appearing in gambling commercials in the province, but Clark wants “a much wider review of how much advertising we want as a society.”

Psychology professor Steve Joordans at the University of Toronto Scarborough said he would like more ad restrictions too.

“Those gambling companies have their marketing intertwined with everything,” said Joordans.

“We should be saying, ‘people can gamble if they want, but we are not going to push it aggressively. We are not going to glorify it. We are not going to normalize it. We are not going to market it.'”

Paul Burns, CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, which represents the regulated industry in Canada, said the ads may seem plentiful, but argues that’s just because they’re new.

The Ontario industry, he said, is subject to rules and regulations including bans on advertising certain incentives, as well as identifying risky behaviour and encouraging healthy play.

“There has been a lot of advancements in Canada and the commitment to ensuring responsible play has been at the forefront of our industry,” Moore said.

Moore said further regulating the industry in other provinces would allow for more control and oversight.

Now in recovery, Theodore Oliver said he wants further government policies that better reflect the risks.

“These are things to be looked at seriously by policymakers. How much are we encouraging people to profit off of something that is objectively a health risk?”