Federal MPs push for bill to restrict sports betting ads

I just remember sitting in my bathroom after placing the last of my money onto a $2,000 blackjack hand and losing it and just thinking, what am I going to do? This 22-year-old, whom we've agreed not to name, lost $14,000 gambling online. He spent the next three months in treatment for his addiction. As somebody who's trying to avoid gambling, it's become ever-present. Every time you watch sports and see gambling ads, your brain is subconsciously just learning that sports equals gambling. We know that the more advertising people see, the more likely they are to participate in gambling and the more likely they are to experience harms. Do you think those ads influenced you originally? You'd see an ad while you were sitting and watching a game that you didn't want to gamble on and all of a sudden you'd get the urge to gamble. It certainly, while I was gambling, would trigger me to go back and place another bet. Ontario approved private online casinos and sports betting four years ago. CBC has learned that since then, while in the rest of the country problem gambling rates went down, in Ontario they went up, and the number of gambling-related suicides tripled. With Alberta now allowing private gambling and the industry lobbying other provinces to come on board, Bardish Chagger is sponsoring a bill that proposes banning ads across the country. People are being impacted in a very harmful way. They are losing their livelihoods, they're losing their homes, they're losing their savings. They're losing their lives. Belgium and Italy and Spain, there's almost entire bans on sponsorship during sports. And I think this is where we're going to move to.