Did legal online betting increase problem gambling in Canada? No post-2018 national survey results found as of September 2026

Whether legal online gambling has increased problem gambling in Canada is unknown as of September 13, 2026. As of June 2024, the last national public assessment of gambling participation and harm was from 2018, and no results from the 2025 Statistics Canada gambling module, scheduled for January to June 2025, had been found as of September 13, 2026. In a 2024 online panel, 40.8% of adults who gambled online met the PGSI 8+ problem gambling criterion, against 0.9% of lottery-only players; Ontario helpline calls about online gambling rose after April 2022, and Quebec’s helpline, Jeu : aide et référence, reported 21% more requests for help in 2023-2024, a count that includes video games and cyberdependence as well as gambling, but no before-and-after population rate exists.

The 2018 baseline predates legal sports betting and open online markets

Single-event sports betting became legal across Canada on August 27, 2021, when the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act came into force. Ontario’s private online market opened on April 4, 2022, when operators registered with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and holding an iGaming Ontario operating agreement could offer games to Ontario players. Alberta’s regulated iGaming market launched on July 13, 2026.

Statistics Canada’s 2018 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) was collected in 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic and before the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act legalized single-event sports betting in 2021, and serves as the baseline for monitoring change under the new legislation. In June 2024, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and Greo stated that Canada had no national or provincial/territorial monitoring of gambling-related harm and that the last national public assessment of gambling participation and harm was from 2018.

How the 2018 CCHS scored problem gambling

Problem gambling, in Canadian surveys, is a score at or above a set cut-off on a screening index: 3 or more on the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) for moderate-to-severe risk, or 8 or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).

The CCHS used the CPGI, nine questions scored into bands: 1 to 2 is low risk, 3 to 7 is moderate risk and 8 or more is the most severe band. In Quebec French usage, “joueur problématique” commonly covers everyone scoring 3 or more. Only respondents who gambled at least monthly on at least one activity were asked the questions. Anyone who gambled less often was scored 0 without being asked.

In the 2018 CCHS, among past-year gamblers aged 15 or older, 95.0% scored 0, 3.4% (636,000) were at low risk and 1.6% (304,000) scored 3 or more, the moderate-to-severe band. A separate 2021 analysis of 2018 national data, using all adults as the denominator, put 0.6% of Canadian adults in the problem gambler category and another 2.7% at risk, down from 1.1% problem gamblers in 2002, a 45% decline. Its authors, noting similar declines in other Western countries despite expanded legal gambling, read them as suggesting a degree of “inoculation or adaptation” in large parts of the population.

The denominator alone moves the number. Take 1,000 adults, 400 of whom gambled in the past year: 5% of the gamblers is 20 people, which is 2% of all 1,000 adults.

Why the 2024 figure of 9.9% is not a trend

The 2024 figure comes from a Mental Health Research Canada online survey of 8,211 adults, collected through the Léger Opinion panel from October 24 to November 12, 2024, weighted by age, gender and province, with self-selecting participation. In the 2024 panel’s analysed sample of 7,960, 9.9% met the problem gambling criterion of a PGSI score of 8 or more, 4.9% reported high gambling-related harm and 35.7% gambled beyond the Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines.

That 9.9% differs from the 2018 1.6% on three counts: a self-selected online panel instead of Statistics Canada’s 2018 CCHS, a cut-off of 8+ instead of 3+, and all adults instead of past-year gamblers as the denominator. Comparing them mixes all three differences and measures no change.

The 2024 panel locates problems by type of play. In the 2024 panel, adults who gambled online in the past year met the PGSI 8+ criterion at 40.8%, against 0.9% of lottery-only players, and reported high harm at 19.0% against 0.9%. In the 2024 panel, 32.0% of adults aged 18 to 29 gambled online, and 69.4% of those young online gamblers met the criterion. A single survey at one point in time locates problems in online play; it does not show whether they grew.

Ontario helpline calls after April 2022

In Ontario Problem Gambling Helpline data from June 2021 to January 2023, calls naming online gambling averaged 29.0 a month before and 92.9 a month after Ontario’s April 2022 expansion of legal online gambling and its advertising. Online gambling’s share of calls that named a game type rose from 34% to 48%. An interrupted time-series analysis found a significant association between Ontario’s expansion of legal online gambling and advertising and calls about online gambling, and no significant effect for other game types.

Helpline calls count people seeking help, and they have no population denominator. A rise is consistent with more people harmed, more awareness of the helpline, or both.

Ontario channelization surveys count players, not dollars or harm

Channelization surveys in Ontario measure the share of online gamblers who say they play on regulated sites. In the Ipsos study iGaming Ontario released on May 21, 2026, that share was 91.1%, up from 83.7% in the previous year’s study, and the share playing only on unregulated sites fell to 8.9% from 16.3%. In iGaming Ontario’s year-3 Ipsos study (2024-25), 20.2% of Ontario online gamblers who played on regulated sites were also still using unregulated sites. Before Alberta’s July 2026 launch, the Government of Alberta estimated that unregulated operators held about 70% of Alberta’s online gambling market.

Advertising rules in Ontario, Alberta and Bill S-211

Ontario banned athletes from igaming advertising and restricted celebrities likely to appeal to minors, effective February 28, 2024. In Alberta, AGLC regulates the content of ads by registered iGaming operators but does not control how often they appear or how much advertising runs, and refers frequency concerns to the CRTC. Federal Bill S-211, as passed by the Senate, would require the Minister of Canadian Heritage to develop a national framework on sports betting advertising, including measures to limit the number, scope or location of ads; as of September 13, 2026, it was at committee in the House of Commons, not law.

The British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) states in its 2026/27–2028/29 service plan that national advertising for Ontario-only licensed sites drives players outside Ontario to affiliated sites of the same brands that are unregulated and illegal in B.C.

Responsible-gambling evidence measures tool use, not population harm

The AGCO’s safer-gambling page for Ontario players states that regulated internet gaming sites must provide limit-setting features and that a limit cannot be removed until a cooling-off period of at least 24 hours has passed. Surveys of 18,580 patrons at 75 Canadian casinos and racinos in RG Check patron surveys from 2011 to 2019 found awareness and use of harm-minimization tools rising among more frequent patrons, a substantial share still unaware of them, and the effect of that awareness on gambling behaviour largely unknown.

In a randomized trial with 4,328 customers of a Finnish state-run online operator, prompting players to set a voluntary deposit limit of any size increased limit-setting but did not change net loss over 90 days. An umbrella review of 10 systematic reviews found harm-reduction tools limited by adherence to voluntary systems and the evidence generally poor.

Quebec helpline demand in 2023-2024

Quebec’s helpline, Jeu : aide et référence, reported 6,848 people contacting it in 2023-2024, a 21% rise in requests; the count includes video games and cyberdependence as well as gambling. In the same August 2024 report, crisis or high-distress calls made up 36% of the Quebec service’s cases, and family and friends of gamblers made nearly 20% of requests. In August 2024 the service launched its first fundraising campaign in 30 years, stating that recurrent Quebec health ministry funding was not enough. These figures measure strain on services, not the number of people harmed.

What would show whether problem gambling rose after legalization

A before-and-after answer requires a post-legalization national survey that repeats the 2018 CCHS design. As of September 13, 2026, the Alberta Gambling Research Institute’s follow-up study lists a Statistics Canada Rapid Response Gambling Module scheduled for January to June 2025, with a planned sample of 19,500, alongside Léger online panels in 2025. The Statistics Canada module is the comparable one only if it keeps the CPGI, the 3+ cut-off, the past-year-gambler denominator and the monthly skip rule; a 2025 Léger panel result shares the 2024 panel’s online-panel method and is not comparable with the CCHS. Both were scheduled for 2025, before Alberta’s market opened on July 13, 2026.

Two Canadian problem gambling numbers are comparable only when they match on five things: the 2018 CCHS design or a self-selected online panel, CPGI or PGSI, 3+ or 8+ cut-off, past-year gamblers or all residents as the denominator, and, for French-language “joueur problématique” figures, whether 3+ is meant.