Sports Betting Advertising In Canada On Thin Ice

Brian Dijkema knows his advocacy is unlikely to cause sports gambling to disappear entirely, but he looks forward to a day when at least there’s no advertising extolling its benefits.

“Treat it like they did tobacco,” said Dijkema, a public policy analyst and president, Canada, for the think tank Cardus, in an interview with OddsShark.

Bill S-269 Makes It To The House of Commons

Cardus was one of the groups that made submissions to the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications during its hearings on Bill S-269, which has cleared the Senate and, if passed by the House of Commons, would regulate advertising for sports betting in Canada.

“We had done research on the impact of betting, prior to sports betting being legalized, and the results of that research showed there’s a disproportionate negative effect on those who are poorer,” Dijkema explained. “And because we’ve done a lot of work on the economic prospects of those who are low income, we’ve said…our research showed that there is effectively a regressive curve of spending on gambling. With (income) tax, it’s a progressive curve, the more money you make, the higher percentage of your money you pay to the government. It’s the total opposite with gambling; the lower your income, the higher your percentage of spending on gambling.”

Tax Impacts of Sports Betting

Dikjema said the most benevolent addiction that results from sports betting is when the state becomes addicted to the revenue that’s created. For people, it’s much worse.

“In Ontario, all that money – lottery terminals, casinos - after paying fees, it goes to the government, and because it goes into the consolidated revenue fund it’s effectively functions as a tax and so we’re saying it’s a regressive tax,” he said. “That’s how we got started, and then sports gambling was legalized, and we knew from the U.S. there was certain evidence we wanted to see what it looked like in Ontario, so we did a follow up to that. And because we had that empirical research, that’s why we got in front of the senate.”

Gambling Age in Ontario

As more provinces consider following Ontario into the regulated market, the gambling industry’s exposure to minors has lawmakers considering a limit on the use of celebrities and athletes in ads, as well as limiting the number of ads that can be shown and restrictions on non-broadcast advertising.

“In 2023, there were scholars who did a systematic review of the cause and effect between advertising volume and gambling activity, so that means how much advertising you’re exposed to, and whether it actually causes you to gamble. I will say there’s a built-in argument for the fact that it works, which is that companies spend money on it. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t spend money on it,” said Dijkema.

“The other one is they’ve done academic research on it, and it shows there is consistent support for the existence of a causal relationship between exposure to advertising and more positive attitudes about gambling, intention to gamble and then increased gambling activity. It happens at the individual level, but also at population level. Nobody really disputes it.”

Ratification of Ban on Sports Betting

The position of Cardus is that any national framework for sports betting should look like those put in place for alcohol, tobacco and cannabis.

“There’s lot of evidence that being intoxicated makes you gamble more,” Dijkema said. “That’s why in many casinos, drinks are free, because they know the more looped you are, the more likely you are to put money down. We also know that in sports betting, the people that are betting in-play tend to skew younger, and are more likely to be male. So, those are the people most likely to use alcohol and drugs.”

“Because of the evidence, and that evidence mainly comes from the UK, the UK bans it already,” he said. “There’s a reason Michael Jordan has sold so many shoes. Anyone who says there’s no link between celebrity advertising something and the likelihood somebody is going to do it needs to give their head a shake. Talk to anyone in marketing, and ask them if they’d like to have Conor McDavid selling their product, the answer is obviously yes…because people want to be like him, so if he’s doing it, they’ll do it.”

Dijkema acknowledged that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has regulations in place to minimize the influence of athletes on gambling, but he thinks that even though multiple operators have been fined for violating them, those regulations are too easily skirted.