Ads for electronic gambling are everywhere, and they’re doing a lot of damage.
It’s highly addictive, and people can lose huge amounts very quickly. 32% of Canadians aged 18 to 29 have gambled online in the past year, and plenty of teenagers do it too. Calls to the helpline for problem gamblers are up more than 300% since online gambling became legal — and then started being advertised constantly.
Almost all of the internet gambling companies are foreign-owned, and they have collected over $10 billion in bets since the Doug Ford government launched the current system in 2022.
Fortunately, Ontario Liberal Party MPP Lee Fairclough has introduced a Bill in the Ontario Legislature that would ban advertising for online gambling.
Learn more about Lee and this fight here: https://www.leefairclough.ca
Ontario can’t ban internet gambling (that is for the federal government to decide). But it CAN treat internet gambling like tobacco and cannabis — things that we know are dangerous (especially to kids!). These things should NOT be advertised openly, because that gets new people hooked.