Photo Credit: Andrew Angelov
An advocacy group in Canada is lobbying the nation’s federal government to completely ban online gambling firms from being able to advertise their wares including prediction markets via radio, television, or print.
Known as Ban Ads for Gambling, the organization submitted a brief on Tuesday asking the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to add its desired prohibition to Bill S-211, which is a proposed federal law that would regulate all forms of sports gambling advertising.
Fronted by former Olympic athlete Bruce Kidd, Ban Ads for Gambling was established in August of 2023 and is lobbying for a comprehensive tobacco-style federal prohibition on gambling and sports betting advertisements across Canada. The group argues Bill S-211 does not go far enough in terms of regulation and wants it amended so as to cover all forms of iGaming including online casinos, sports wagering, and video games.
Ban Ads for Gambling asserted responsible gambling policies normalize wagering and were strategies ‘invented by the British betting industry a generation ago to sanitize a seedy, harmful industry’. The group also stated gambling advertisements are designed to ‘hook people’ into parting with their cash and, like alcohol and drugs, activate the brain’s dopamine system where a ‘reward’ pathway fuels cycles of addiction.
“Gambling ads are everywhere, on television, in sports arenas, online, in social media, even on public transit,” read a statement from Ban Ads for Gambling. “They are designed to make betting normal, harmless, and exciting but these ads target the young and vulnerable, fueling a public-health and addiction crisis we cannot ignore. They’re also poisoning the culture of sport.”
Officially entitled the National Framework on Sports Betting Advertising Act, Bill S-211 was introduced by Senator Marty Deacon in late-May of 2025 before being passed through the country’s upper chamber some five months later. The legislation, which cleared a second reading in the lower House of Commons in April, would endow the Canadian Heritage Minister with the power to set national standards on the public promotion of sports wagering including limits on the scope, number, and location of such advertisements.
Currently sitting with the twelve-member House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Bill S-211 could become the law of the land as early as next year should it pass an upcoming third and final House of Commons vote.
As written, the legislation would moreover heavily restrict athlete and celebrity endorsements of sports wagering, instruct the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to formally review its current regulatory codes, create national standards for identifying and diagnosing gambling harms, and prevent the normalization of gambling among youth and vulnerable individuals.
For its part, the Canadian Gaming Association declared gambling advertisements are already ‘completely’ regulated at a provincial level while the governments of Ontario and Alberta oppose Bill S-211. The group representing Canada’s commercial gaming, eSports, sports wagering, and lottery industries additionally asserted the passage of the measure could infringe provincial authority and even drive players towards unregulated offshore iGaming domains.
“For over two decades, Canadians have had unrestricted access to unregulated online gaming and disregarding the existence of such activities or purporting that advertising is the cause of problem gambling would be unrealistic and naïve,” read a statement from the Canadian Gaming Association.
Instead, the Canadian Gaming Association has lobbied for increased regulation and oversight at a provincial level as ways to reduce the number of unlicensed operators and the prevalence of potential harms. The organization furthermore highlighted Ontario, where mass-market iGaming advertisements featuring celebrities or the promotion of bonuses is banned, as a positive example of where a jurisdiction has taken positive steps to improve an already robust regulatory framework.
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