Sports betting poses potential health problems

Sports betting in Ontario is becoming more popular and more addictive, according to some researchers out of Hamilton.

A think tank called Cardus put together some research that shows sports betting can rival slot machines in the way they get people addicted.

The Ontario government legalized single event sports betting in 2021. Now, there’s about 1.3 million accounts betting on games. Cardus found that the average account is spending $283 per month on sports betting.

The President of Cardus, Brian Dijkema, says during a live sports game a person will see about two or more references to sports every minute.

“There is a massive, massive investment in advertising for sports betting.”

He added that one way to curb addictions in sports betting would be to ban these types of ads.

“There is an incentive problem there, that the governments that’s supposed to be helping those with addictions is actually fomenting it at the same time,” said Dijkema.

Cardus found that there’s been movement away from friendly betting and towards corporate betting.

They found that people spending above 1 per cent of household income are more likely to experience relational harms with things like divorce and separation. People are also 3.9 times as likely to experience psychological harms like depression or anxiety and 4.4 times as likely to experience psychological harms from health problems related to gambling.

“This is no longer you and I betting for and against the Leaf’s and having a good time over a couple beers. This is now big business, and big business is doing this at the cost of households, not just financially but in a variety of other ways,” said Dijkema.