Betting in Alberta: Is it time to crack down on gambling ads?

The shot at a big payout is what drives gamblers to put their money down and push their chips across the table.

Some Albertans say they’ve seen a lot of betting ads lately offering them the chance to get in on the action.

“I see it pretty often, gambling advertisements all the time,” one Edmontonian said.

At the University of Alberta, student advocates are calling on the province to take action and crack down on the number of gambling ads. They say children are seeing way too many of them, and it could lead to harm.

“When you tailor the ads so that it could be open to anyone, you’re just allowing children to be advertised to, but through a back door,” said Sarah Toay, a public health student at U of A.

Toay says the number one culprit is sports – events that should be family friendly, but where viewers are being bombarded with constant updates on betting odds and incentives to sign up.

This could increase a young person’s risk of developing longer, bigger gambling habits as they get older, she warns.

“People are looking at the messaging and saying there is very little harm and risk with this, and then inadequate protections, that’s where I think their social responsibility measures are falling short,” Toay said.

She’s calling for a complete ban on gambling advertisements, lowering betting limits, and a commitment to fund independent research on the impacts of gambling. She wants the province to step in.

Alberta’s minister of red tape reduction, Dale Nally, says the province is cracking down on gambling advertisements, but that gambling itself isn’t going anywhere.

Alberta launched its first and only provincially regulated gambling site in 2020 to pull gamblers away from the black market. Still, Nally says that market holds 65 per cent of people placing bets.

“A lot of these companies are quite repugnant,” Nally said. “They don’t just target youth and vulnerable people, but they also don’t do age verification as well. We’re quite concerned about that, and that’s why it’s important that we put in this regulated legal format, so that we can put player safety and responsibility first.”

Nally adds the province is looking to shut down celebrity deals and deposit bonuses that make gambling more attractive.

The province will be expanding its regulated gambling market to more private companies later this year.

But some Albertans still want to see bigger cuts to gambling ads.

“Put it on adult sites to make it sure there’s no kids on the sites,” one person said.

“If you’re going to have gambling on your phones, it shouldn’t be able to be advertised to the degree that it is,” said another.