91����ԭ��

A bill opposed by the Canadian gaming industry that proposes to establish a national framework for regulating sports-betting advertising has been approved by the Senate, sending the measure to the House of Commons for further consideration.

“I support the bill wholeheartedly,” Senator Leo Housakos, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada from Quebec, told his colleagues prior to the passage of S-269 on Tuesday (November 5).

“Any one of us who does gets the impression half the time that instead of being in our living room or family room, we’re in the middle of a casino in [Las] Vegas or Atlantic City and surrounded by bookies because we’ve been bombarded over and over again by the same ad, usually a very glamorous one of people glorifying, of course, sports betting.”

Housakos said Canadian senators “always knew there was a risk of that a few years ago when we passed this piece of legislation” to legalize single-event sports betting.

Canada fully legalized sports betting in 2021 via a federal bill that gave Canadian provinces the ability to develop their own markets for sports wagering.

The new legislation, known as the National Framework on Advertising for Sports Betting, would specifically require the federal government in Ottawa to set limits on advertising and set national standards for preventing problem gambling.

Sponsored by Ontario Senator Marty Deacon and introduced in June 2023, also proposes to extend the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario’s (AGCO) ban on celebrities and athletes appearing in ads for gambling sites across the country.

Deacon, a member of the Independent Senators Group, told CBC in June that the effort to legalize single-event wagering took several attempts to get through parliament but failed to address the onslaught of advertising, which she believes needs to be regulated.

Housakos told his colleagues he believed Deacon’s legislation was “a reasonable bill”.

“It doesn’t address all the problems that we’re facing, but I think it’s a step forward,” Housakos said. “I think we should continue to be vigilant.”

Paul Burns, president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA), reiterated the industry's position that Deacon’s bill is unnecessary because most of what the bill aims to do is currently in place via specific rules imposed by provincial regulators.

He said there was a “giant lack of understanding” in the Senate about the evolution of Canada’s gaming marketplace.

“The provinces have successfully regulated gaming,” Burns told 91����ԭ�� GamblingCompliance.

“I don’t think there is a need for the federal government to regulate gaming. [Deacon] wanted to ban all advertising; she couldn’t do that so this was the next best thing she could do.” 

During his comments Tuesday on the Senate floor, Housakos stressed his concern over rising problem gambling rates and how broadcasters and professional sports teams have become dependent on revenue from gambling companies. He also oversaw at least a half-dozen study sessions on S-269 as chair of the Senate Transport and Communications Committee.

“What we did learn in the course of our study is that there have been some social ramifications,” Housakos said.

“The only concern I have is that there is a tendency for people to think it is a widespread problem and that it touches many Canadians, that sports-betting addiction has become a huge problem and almost at a crisis level.”

Still, senators were not able “to get a concrete statistic in terms of how many people are not using sports betting for entertaining purposes in a moderate, responsible fashion, but clearly, there were enough advocates saying that even if the percentage is 3 percent or 4 percent or 5 percent or 7 percent or 10 percent, there are a number of people who did get addicted to sports betting.

“More often than not, it’s people who don’t have the means and capacity to afford it, and, of course, it spirals into other social problems, like family problems, financial problems and so on and so forth. Particularly of concern to me is that it does, I think, disproportionally touch young people.”

The passage of a bill to regulate sports-betting advertising in the Canadian Senate comes about two months after two U.S. lawmakers introduced similar federal legislation in Congress.

Representative Paul Tonko of New York and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats, released the Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet (SAFE Bet) Act in September that proposes a federal oversight structure for state-authorized sports betting.

According to the bill, state regulations would have to ensure that all advertising for sports betting is prohibited between the hours of 8am and 10pm, as well as during live sporting events.

The SAFE Bet Act has been opposed by Nevada Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat, who has expressed concern that if the federal government were to get involved in regulating any aspect of the gaming industry that could roll into another “layer of rules and possibly put in some taxes.”

“We want to avoid all of that,” Titus told a September seminar hosted by the American Gaming Association (AGA) and Semafor in Washington, D.C.