Two senators are calling on the federal government to ban advertising for sports betting in Canada.
A letter to the prime minister from Charlottetown Sen. Percy Downe and Waterloo Sen. Marty Deacon asks the government to have the CRTC ban all advertising for sports gambling apps and websites. It is supported by 40 other senators.
The letter says people of all ages who are exposed to the stream of ads are being influenced to turn their phone into “a pocket-sized casino.”
It also references a CBC Marketplace report that found gambling messages fill up, on average, 21 per cent of a sporting event’s broadcast runtime.
Advertising rules should be overhauled, start with banning Gambling ads, that means ads for casinos themselves as well. Move onto tobacco and finish off outright banning advertising of it. Cannabis same deal, then move onto alcohol and drugs, full advertising ban.
It’s utterly out of control. There’s virtually no ads that aren’t gambling related anymore. That tells you how lucrative these sites are.
Can we ban advertising for gambling as a whole?
I wish we could just ban advertising period. It’s psychological manipulation that’s been perfected and concentrated over the years, and it’s only getting worse.
Can we ban advertising on pharmaceuticals? There are so many pharma ads around where I live it’s insane.
This, it’s borderline dangerous to advertise prescription-based pharmaceuticals. Leave that to the professional to decide if they should be prescribed, not the patient.
Ive noticed this too, some of the ads I’ve heard on the radio are similar to the ads in the US where the disclaimer and side effects warnings are longer than the ad itself.
Yeah this wasn’t really a thing just two years ago, I wonder what changed…
I would like advertising for all adult activities to be limited to other places of adult activities. casinos, bars, liquor stores, strip clubs, what have you. They can have all sorts of banners and fliers for each other and none of it should be visible from the outside.
Or just ban gambling?
I’m all for banning it but if that doesn’t work due to black market issues, then restrict it hard. Like it used to be.
True, better harm reduction regulations may be better.
Yes.
This seems like a reasonable thing to do. People still buy cigarettes despite the ban on open advertising. People seeking vices will seek them out. But we don’t need to encourage it in every possible media avenue.
It’s crazy, so much public space is taken up by sports betting ads and this industry is a completely predatory enterprise. And that’s before going into its effect on the local economy where betting dollars could be going instead. I don’t have high hopes for regulation though, I bet their lobby has grown dramatically over the years they’ve been allowed to grow in Canada.
Thanks for posting this. It’s such an obviously good idea. I’ve just emailed my MP to lodge my support.
Where was this backbone when RuneScape claimed their loot boxes were not gambling but “surprise mechanics”?
