Earlier this week, the Senate unveiled their own sports betting advertising regulation bill. In turn, doctors and others in the medical community are pushing the industry to take a harder line to protect impressionable young audiences. Dr. Shannon Charlebois, a family physician and advocate for the bill, says she truly feels this legislation can change the game. If it passes, it would make an important move to address the disturbing new trend of normalizing gambling for kids and teens.
Dr. Charlebois further points out that youth are being bombarded with advertising that links enjoyment of sports with the need to place a bet. He points out how the names of sports betting platforms now flash brightly on football fields and hockey rinks. This makes the messages completely unavoidable to young viewers.
Shawn Kelly is an adolescent addiction specialist based in Ottawa. On that count he and Dr. Charlebois are in agreement, as indicated in the editorial they co-authored together. He goes on to detail how gambling sites pretend to only target people over the age of 19. This limitation does not prevent young people from being exposed to these ads.
“There are certain age restrictions and identity verification attempts that go into these (betting sites), but youth have been buying alcohol for a long time, despite the age restrictions around that — and so where there is a motivated adolescent, a way will be found,” – Dr. Shawn Kelly
Dr. Kelly sees the harmful effects of these ads play out up close every time he watches sports with his young twins. Tellingly, while these ads aren’t directly marketed to children, he explains, children are still the ones soaking up all the content being pumped out.
“These ads are not directed at the nine-year-olds sitting with me but they are picking up on it,” – Dr. Shawn Kelly
Both physicians reiterate the risks of exposing impressionable young minds to gambling marketing during their critical developmental stages. Dr. Charlebois states, “What’s very dangerous about this for children is that it’s normalizing a known harmful behaviour during an impressionable stage. And it’s super attractive especially to young people who are genetically, biologically hardwired to seek out risk and danger.
For the past two years, Dr. Kelly has seen a troubling new pattern in his practice. The majority of his patients still struggle with substance use disorders. He has recently started screening for gambling behavior too. He notes that normalizing gambling through exposure to gambling advertisements can create dangerous addictions that carry over into adulthood.
“I have seen people’s lives fall apart at all ages, from all walks of life, whether it’s an accountant with a career behind him, or a kid who’s just looking to maximize his college fund who then had lost it all within a matter of a few weeks,” – Dr. Shannon Charlebois
The change that most concerns Dr. Charlebois is the lack of any limits on how many betting ads can be broadcast during sports broadcasts. This is problematic because it means viewers are exposed to this toxic, stigmatizing messaging for long stretches of time, establishing repeated exposure.
