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.
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.