MPs moving to restrict gambling ads in Canada

Posted by Teever 5 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by geooff_ 4 hours ago

Good riddance. Why did we ever allow this to happen? It's an entirely self-inflicted public health crisis.

Comment by jerf 2 hours ago

There are a number of things that cycle because the solution ends up being successful enough that the next generation doesn't realize there is a problem being solved. Chesterton's Fence, except on a generational timescale it's Chesterton's Oscillating Fence.

100% squashing gambling has generally not been successful, but the strategy of fencing it away from most of society and keeping it in a set of defined places that require people to actively seek it out has been successful enough that people forget why we don't allow gambling in every convenience store in the country. I'd say the additional "convenience" of having it in your pocket all the time is a new nuance, but doesn't necessarily change the fundamental equations.

We will relearn. Our grandchildren will forget again. (Unless things have really changed.)

Comment by doubled112 1 hour ago

> we don't allow gambling in every convenience store in the country

In Ontario we do allow gambling in every convenience store in the province.

There are scratch tickets right there on the counter. There's the OLG machine for printing and checking lottery tickets and sports betting.

It has been this way for as long as I can remember, but it's never been in your face like the last few years.

Maybe we'll start repurposing the washrooms and stock rooms for poker tournaments soon.

Comment by SoftTalker 33 minutes ago

Yes, same in the US. States like to lecture us on gambling when they are the biggest operators out there.

Comment by triceratops 22 minutes ago

States operate gambling so that there is no profit motive in running it. That's the theory for it anyway.

Comment by SoftTalker 17 minutes ago

What? States make buckets of money from gambling. They typically claimed it was "for education" but money is fungible and our other taxes never went down, so anything it offsets in one budget just leaves more money for other budgets.

Comment by triceratops 16 minutes ago

Read my second sentence again.

Comment by jbm 3 hours ago

Ditto, this is a cancer. Wayne Gretzky is dead to me because of his support of these ads. The greatest Canadian athlete of the 80s and 90s is now Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

On a more depressing note, wasn't this always a thing? I remember being in 4th grade when a classmate brought in something called "Mise-o-jou", which was being run by the Quebec government.

Comment by randlet 1 hour ago

> Wayne Gretzky is dead to me because of his support of these ads.

This is just the latest in a long line of shit "The Great One" has done to be an embarrassment to Canada.

Comment by red-iron-pine 8 minutes ago

the sucking up to trump is the biggest. though his wine is probably up there too.

Comment by dj_rock 1 hour ago

The best there is. The best there was. The best there ever will be.

Comment by monsieurgaufre 48 minutes ago

Lemieux is/was the best that will ever be.

Comment by greatzky99 31 minutes ago

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Comment by suckmybllshacke 26 minutes ago

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Comment by jgon 22 minutes ago

Too many people don't have knowledge of Bret Hart and this comment being grey shows it.

Comment by ipaddr 3 hours ago

The guy who sold out in the 80s and moved to LA is now dead to you over gambling ads? Very delayed reaction.

Comment by jbm 2 hours ago

I am from Montreal and (I can't believe this but it is 100% true) I was bullied in my (English-speaking) Montreal-area grade school for wearing non-Oilers merch. I was pleased when he left. (Yes, this is the home of Rocket Richard, the Pocket Rocket, Jean Beliveau, Guy Lafleur and Patrick Roy at the time)

I think the online element hates Gretzky because of something about the order of Canada but that does nothing to me and I honestly don't care. However, the gambling ads literally damage the fabric of the country and ruin the lives of average people, for a guy who made more in an year than many people made in a lifetime.

Comment by b112 19 minutes ago

So this was you?

https://www.nfb.ca/film/sweater/

Comment by robertfw 1 hour ago

> I think the online element hates Gretzky because of something about the order of Canada

I would say it has a fair bit more to do with his cozying up to Trump

Comment by greatzky99 30 minutes ago

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Comment by gruez 33 minutes ago

The ostensible reason provided (at least according to press reports at the time) was to divert people from offshore gambling operations, allowing the government to capture revenue as well as protect consumers. That argument isn't entirely without merit either. The US supreme court legalized sports gambling in 2018, so there was going to be a tsunami of people using VPNs to gamble without legalization in Canada.

Comment by fidotron 1 hour ago

Provincial governments are way too happy with sin taxes in general, to the point of encouraging the vices they supposedly want to reduce.

The entire concept of sin taxes distorts the incentives for govs too much. If something is to be discouraged then do that, but do not have government revenue attached to people performing the discouraged activity.

Comment by amelius 1 hour ago

Totally agree, but we got here because of the liberals who have a rather simplified view of reality.

Comment by exe34 1 hour ago

Which liberals have been clamouring for gambling ads? Name and shame them!

Comment by andrewla 2 hours ago

I was going to upvote this comment but changed my mind because I think although we both see gambling ads as a scourge, we could not be more far apart in our reasons.

I could give two shits about the "public health crisis". People have agency, they can choose what to do with their lives and their money and I'm okay with the reaping and sowing lining up together.

I'm concerned in that I find the focus on gambling presented so prominently to be offensive, period. That is, I am offended. This is Just Wrong. I enjoy watching (some) sports, I appreciate the drama, I love the moments of superhuman feats and the balance of luck and skill and strategy and tactics and grand strategy and analysis and all of the things that it presents.

A friendly wager is fine, going by a sports book is fine once in a while. Even betting on an outcome on an online sports book is fine. It is a vice, sure, but who among us does not enjoy stepping outside the bounds of "proper" behavior. But this pervasive push to treat it as a normal and expected and typical thing offends me. It is a vice, and it should be done with the appropriate amount of shame and friction that we tolerate of almost all vices. It should not be normalized and it should not be glorified.

Comment by pixl97 2 hours ago

>People have agency, they can choose what to do with their lives and their money and I'm okay with the reaping and sowing lining up together.

Heh, I wonder how this fits in with how AI thinks about it.

>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50197313

>Every AI model has the same “controversial” take on humans

You have far less agency than you think you do. We are automatons in so much of our behavior. You do what your parents tell you, your parents do what the church tells them, and you all buy ice cold Coca-Cola because the TV tells you to. In bulk we are statistically predictable. This is why we have laws against particular drugs, huge numbers of us will high ourselves to death and collapse the society around us. Society itself is a remover of agency. Animals can do whatever they want, humans are constrained socially in what we're allowed to do.

We really do have a false idea of who we are.

Comment by andrewla 2 hours ago

> You have far less agency than you think you do

I guess it's possible, but you have no idea how much agency I think I have.

To focus on one example you give, "Society itself is a removed of agency. Animals can do whatever they want, humans are constrained socially in what we're allowed to do." -- this is a clear misunderstanding of what agency is, or at least how I am using it. You CAN do anything you are physically capable of doing, even in violation of society's rules. Complete agency! People desire things that are only obtainable through conformance with society's rules, or, more sociopathically, only obtainable through the appearance of conformance with society's rules. That society survives is in effect dependent on this fragile web of incentives and expectations and social consequences and martial consequences

You can choose not to drink Coke! That people statistically choose to drink Coke does not mean that people lack agency. If you think the reason people drink Coke is because TV tells you to, then I encourage you to create your own beverage and advertise the shit out it and then get super rich!

The problem is that there is a feeling that you have written out here: that manipulation of people's desires is somehow mechanistic or predictable.

That you can follow some script and get people to do something. But it only appears that way because you are looking at the survivors of the vicious evolution, red in tooth and branding. All the ads in the world didn't make Crystal Pepsi a winner (or frankly make Pepsi a winner). The combination of factors that makes one thing successful and another not cannot be easily replicated or copied from one domain to another or even within one domain.

If there were a mechanism then someone would be using it; everyone would be using it; and there would be no winners and everyone would be a winner. It's a self-contradictory view that doesn't match reality in any way.

Comment by ambione 2 hours ago

May you or your loved ones never become afflicted with an addiction, lest you have to reassess your understanding and stance regarding addiction.

Comment by randlet 1 hour ago

> I could give two shits about the "public health crisis". People have agency, they can choose what to do with their lives and their money and I'm okay with the reaping and sowing lining up together.

"I could give two shits about the "public health crisis".

Have you thought about this for longer than a fraction of a second? Hope you don't bother to use any of our public education, health care, or other support systems.

Addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling is expensive for all of us in Canada.

Comment by andrewla 1 hour ago

Drugs and alcohol, for sure, I can see it. They are a disproportionate drain on the public health apparatus compared to individuals that live a healthy lifestyle. Use of drugs, alcohol, driving motorcycles, eating too much fatty food, participating in dangerous sports, all have a public health components.

I'm not seeing it for gambling. How is that expensive for anyone but the person doing the gambling?

Comment by nkrisc 10 minutes ago

Gambling easily ruins more lives than just the gambler’s. It can be as effective as drugs or alcohol in that regard.

Comment by adhamsalama 1 hour ago

It's expensive for their families as well.

Comment by arbitrary_name 48 minutes ago

uhhh, try being the child or family member of a problem gambler. almost as consequential as drugs or alcohol in my experience.

Comment by throwaway_95283 3 hours ago

We used to have freedom and self-control.

Comment by TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago

The gambling industry has never shown evidence of self-control.

Comment by throwaway_95283 3 hours ago

They seem to be pretty diligent about it, I mean once I hit on 17 and won on 22, but generally they are pretty vigilant about it.

Comment by kingstnap 2 hours ago

You can still gamble.

When it comes to hard drugs I can understand why there are reasonable arguments for legalization of personal use.

Idk how many reasonable arguments extend the overton window to thinking that meth should be advertised seemingly all over the place. Because gambling ads are actually everywhere.

Comment by dualvariable 20 minutes ago

I'm actually consistent in the other direction.

I find intrusive advertising toxic and want it all reduced or banned.

Not just tobacco and gambling ads, but everything else as well.

(No, I don't care that it is like advocating for democracy in 10th-century England and would entirely blow up how our economy currently "works")

Comment by AlexandrB 3 hours ago

Modern sports gambling ads amount to fraud because winners are prevented from winning more through wager restrictions. The whole industry can only exist because it cheats and lies.

Comment by jtbigwoo 1 hour ago

The most damning thing about the online gambling sites/apps is that they don't care about how much you bet, only how much you lose. They aggressively limit and ban their biggest customers if those customers win.

Comment by throwaway_95283 1 hour ago

Use polymarket, they don't care.

Comment by sandworm101 2 hours ago

No. They are called "vices" because you get stuck in them. Ten thousand studies on mice tell us that addiction isn't learned morality but innate biology.

We also pass laws regulating murder/arson/theft even though those too can be avoided through self control.

Comment by worik 39 minutes ago

The studies that showed rats would suck on a morphine feed until they got very sick had a floor which was demonstrated in the 1970s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Comment by throwaway_95283 2 hours ago

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Comment by Cpoll 3 hours ago

We used to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Being influencable by advertising is a moral failing. </s>

Comment by fudged71 2 hours ago

Its pretty remarkable what happened as soon as the regulation was loosened. In Alberta it feels as though these companies bought every single ad spot available. I can’t walk, drive, browse in any direction without seeing a gambling ad somewhere. Its not uncommon for me to see them in two or three places simultaneously. A real boring dystopia.

Comment by johnny_canuck 6 minutes ago

If I watch a hockey game on the regional broadcasters, I'll typically see 2-3 different apps marketed on each commercial break, followed by another handful of gambling-related entities marketed on the dynamic signage boards during the game, followed by another gambling app which sponsors the intermission panels. It's quite brutal.

Comment by toastar 2 hours ago

Likewise in Ontario, almost every ad I see on streaming services is for online gambling sites. We're new parents, and I'm surprised the baby gear companies rolling in money that are surely targeting us can't outspend these sites.

Comment by lifeisgood99 1 hour ago

The gambling business is a license to print money and the biggest obstacle is having users. Every dollar spent on ads to acquire more users will be worth it monetarily.

Comment by redanddead 1 hour ago

I wonder what that did to the girlfriends and wives of the province, can’t be good

Comment by triceratops 19 minutes ago

Why do you assume they aren't gambling too?

Comment by chollida1 1 hour ago

The big loser in this might be the NHL and the NHLPA(Players association). The NHL salary cap has gone up alot in the past few years and TV is a big driver of that.

It seems like 50% of commercials are for gambling. If this goes away then the networks TV revenue will almost certainly go down and that has the potential to make the NHL TV rights less valuable to the networks.

The NHL wouldn't be alone here but of hte big 4 north American sports it the most exposed here.

Comment by Marsymars 42 minutes ago

Smaller sports have less gambling revenue, but also less revenue overall, and player salaries are lower - so e.g. professional curlers might be proportionally worse off with the lost revenue than NHL players.

Curling is basically the only sport I watch, and I'm on the fence about abandoning it due to gambling ads.

Comment by triceratops 18 minutes ago

The existence of a salary cap is evidence that the players' unions need to advocate harder for their interests. Can you think of a "maximum allowable salary" in any other industry? It's clearly cartel-like behavior by the franchises. The players bring like 95% of the value in professional sports.

Comment by red-iron-pine 6 minutes ago

that sounds like union talk, comrade

Comment by neom 1 hour ago

The fact that I can get stuck behind someone at the pharmacy checkout who is buying lotto tickets boggles my mind every time. Personally I think we need to go way further than this, but it's a start.

Comment by red-iron-pine 3 minutes ago

people tolerate the lottery because 1) it's run by the state, 2) the money goes into a tax fund that is used to fund improvements on the state level, 3) advertising is limited, and 4) it's limited to fairly straightforward scratchers or lotto-ball picks.

yeah there are always lines of rubes on friday gettin their scratchers, but there is little directly evil dopamine manipulation you'd see on apps

Comment by Ensorceled 1 hour ago

I've walked out of the store and left my stuff on the counter when I realized the person ahead of me had about 50 tickets to scan. Multiple times. I'm not waiting for 10+ minutes for them to scan all their tickets and then buy $100 more tickets.

Comment by BizarroLand 1 hour ago

I've seen some places (US) that have scanners separate from the checkout. That way the lotto nuts can scan without holding up the line.

Comment by sellmesoap 1 hour ago

It long past time we think hard about what is good for us at the pharmacy, sure there are a handful of life saving drugs, but then the other 95% of the store is pink tax and carcinogens.

Comment by SoftTalker 22 minutes ago

Are you suggesting that pharmacies should only fill prescriptions and not sell any OTC medications, cosmetics, or other convenience products?

Comment by loeg 1 hour ago

"Pink tax" isn't real.

Comment by dzonga 25 minutes ago

they need to be banned in the U.S as well.

every ad these days on TV specially during sports is either gambling, pharma - glp1s, some random medicine with obscene side effects or political ads. & fast-food or fast food delivery sprinkled in.

Comment by bawolff 1 hour ago

About time.

I'm fine with gambling existing, but we dont need to manipulate people into doing addictive self-destructive vices they wouldn't already do.

Also the ads are super annoying.

Comment by anukin 4 hours ago

Hopefully they ban the neo betting prediction markets as well

Comment by makeworld 38 minutes ago

Prediction markets are already heavily regulated in Canada.

Comment by jpalawaga 2 hours ago

the sportsbooks/prediction markets were just legalized this summer. that's why there was a swell of advertisement.

it seems unlikely they'd ban something so soon after legalizing.

Comment by bethekidyouwant 3 hours ago

no one is banning gambling (impossible with the internet which is why they legalized it..) just advertising on.. tv I guess. because you cant stop advertising on the internet..

Comment by ipaddr 3 hours ago

They had a ban in place for years and it worked. They have a ban for non kyc cryto markets. It is easy to lean on payment processors and stop 90% of it.

Comment by stephbook 2 hours ago

Yeah you just say that customers lost their money illegally, make the companies give the lost money back and watch them implement know-your-customer real quick, all on their own.

Comment by jst1fthsdys 2 hours ago

Yeah, they had no problem banning online poker that way. Annoying these garbage sports betting sites are allowed now but you still can't play online poker outside of a few states.

Comment by bethekidyouwant 2 hours ago

This is not an accurate history of online poker.

Comment by jst1fthsdys 2 hours ago

This is not a useful reply.

Comment by criddell 2 hours ago

I see lots of gambling ads online but I don't see a lot of ads for cigarettes. Apparently there are some levers that can be pulled.

Comment by bethekidyouwant 2 hours ago

I don’t get it can you rent a server and make a cigarette company in an afternoon?

Comment by k12sosse 1 hour ago

By bulking buying off reserves, yes

Comment by triceratops 16 minutes ago

Absolutely. I can hand-roll and deliver them. You want some? /s

Comment by throwaway_95283 3 hours ago

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Comment by wiseowise 3 hours ago

Nothing normal about gambling.

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by sheepscreek 3 hours ago

I think it's mutually beneficial, you're not somewhere you don't like.

Comment by throwaway_95283 3 hours ago

ooh boy, one would think right? Its def beneficial for me, but many Canadians don't like it.

Comment by red-iron-pine 9 minutes ago

about damn time, they're out of control

Comment by bushido 2 hours ago

It will be interesting to see where this lands.

The Canadian provincial governments usually have a monopoly in running gambling services, and there is a strong case to be made that this is as much about ensuring that they keep making revenue from gambling as it is to reduce the ill effects of other gambling ads.

ex: https://www.canadiangamingbusiness.com/2026/10/22/new-brunsw...

Comment by modzu 2 hours ago

nobody making enough money with a job, but there's a new way to tax them

Comment by krior 35 minutes ago

Gambling is not a job.

Comment by bryanlarsen 4 hours ago

"curb" not "ban". Boo.

Comment by randlet 1 hour ago

"Ontario & Alberta Oppose The Federal Bill"

Quelle surprise.

Comment by johnny_canuck 10 minutes ago

Roughly 51% of the population of the country, with almost 40% in Ontario. Unfortunately won't do much if you're not restricting it in your biggest market.

Comment by ThrowawayTestr 4 hours ago

We banned smoking ads, gambling should be no different.

Comment by cindyllm 4 hours ago

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Comment by modzu 2 hours ago

i saw a commercial of a presumably 18 year old ignoring their family at dinner and gambling under the table on their phone and the line went something like "they dont need to know how much fun youre having!". this was during a baseball game im watching with kids. its totally fukt

Comment by SoftTalker 19 minutes ago

Good teachable moment for you and your kids?

Comment by diego_moita 1 hour ago

Libertarians will cry "freedom of speech".

I say this is about an addiction and an health crisis problem. We should restrict these adds on the same grounds we restrict ads for other addictions such as tobacco.

We should prevent parasites from preying people.

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Comment by lenerdenator 1 hour ago

Now we need to do that down here in the States.

Hell, making it a requirement that you be at a casino is probably another thing that should be looked into.