Ads for sports betting are everywhere – from TV screens to moving buses – and it has some experts sounding the alarm bell about their potential harms. Among them are several faculty members of the University of Toronto Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE), Professor Gretchen Kerr, dean of KPE, and Professors Emeriti Bruce Kidd and Peter Donnelly, who recently started a campaign to ban sports betting ads in Canada.
The federal government made single-event sports betting legal in 2021, arguing that the move would provide Canadians with a safe, legal and competitive online gaming market. The new rules would have the potential to bring the billions of dollars Canadians spend annually betting on single sporting events on illegal black markets back into Canada, so that the money can be monitored and taxed.
But, experts like Kerr, Kidd and Donnelly, have expressed concern with the legal sports betting explosion, fueled by expensive ads for online sportsbooks. We caught up with Kidd recently to find out more about the group’s misgivings and the campaign they launched earlier this week.
What are the downsides of sports betting?
Sport gambling can lead to significant harm, including runaway debt, stress to families, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and even suicide – among other documented economic and social issues that negatively affect Canadians. Statistics Canada recently reported that 1.6 per cent of adult gamblers in Canada, or 304,400 persons, are at moderate to high risk of gambling disorders, including mental health issues.
The American Psychiatric Association classifies addiction to gambling a ‘gambling disorder’, the only non-substance-related disorder so classified.
What role do sport betting ads play in exacerbating the situation?
Gambling ads – in both content and frequency – are particularly enticing to adolescents and other vulnerable persons, especially those struggling with gambling addiction. It is estimated that 10 per cent of the audience for sports on television is made up of children and youth under 18. The Australian Gambling Research Institute has reported that ‘research into the advertising of other harmful products suggests advertising increases uptake and consumption, especially in the adolescent starter market.’
A recent study from the UK concluded that ‘advertising policies could reduce gambling-related harms.’
Is there a difference between sports betting online and gambling in the casino?
The legal age for gambling (19+ in Ontario) can be enforced in a casino. Youngsters can and do create false accounts or find other ways to circumvent the restrictions online.
What’s the impact of sport betting on sport itself?
The exhortation to gamble demeans the spirit of sport. Instead of the athleticism, kinaesthetic beauty, ethical values, intercultural respect and communal spirit of sports, sports betting reduces meaning to whether a team or a play achieves a point spread or a within-game parley. Athletes in sports where betting is allowed are increasingly being subjected to abusive pressure placed on them by gamblers through the social media, as evidenced by the recent statements of Toronto Raptors Chris Boucher and Fred Van Vliet.
What does your campaign propose?
We seek to ban advertising for sports betting in the same way that advertising for tobacco and cannabis is banned. We also seek to prohibit the betting companies from organizing bets on the Olympic, Paralympic, amateur and educational sports in Canada.