Key Takeaways:
Ontario Invoice 107 would ban on-line playing advertisements throughout TV, social media, and paid sponsorships. Fines attain C$1 million; second conviction triggers license revocation. Ontario PCs maintain 80 seats; Liberals maintain 14, making passage unlikely.
A Legislative Backlash to the 2022 Privatization
Lee Fairclough, the Liberal critic for psychological well being, addictions, and homelessness, tabled the invoice within the Legislative Meeting of Ontario on April 20. It cleared its first introductory vote and was ordered for second studying, with debate scheduled for mid-Might. The proposal would amend Ontario’s Gaming Management Act, 1992, to ban roughly 50 licensed sportsbook and iGaming operators — and the companies advertising on their behalf — from selling their platforms by broadcast media, social media, or paid sponsorships.
The invoice frames itself explicitly as a reversal of the Doug Ford authorities’s 2022 determination to open Ontario to non-public iGaming operators. “On-line playing is turning into a public well being disaster,” Fairclough stated within the assertion accompanying the invoice, which additionally states that calls to ConnexOntario, the province’s psychological well being and addictions helpline, have risen 144 p.c because the regulated iGaming market launched in April 2022 – a determine that was possible derived from the Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal’s March 2 examine this 12 months.
Fairclough has argued that playing platforms might be “supercharging” habit, pointing to the ubiquity of promotional content material as a driver of normalization. The invoice attracts an express parallel with tobacco, alcohol, and hashish – every topic to promoting restrictions in Canada.
Per the invoice draft, people convicted of breaching the promoting prohibition would face fines of as much as C$100,000, whereas company violators might be chargeable for as much as C$1 million. A second conviction triggers obligatory revocation of a provider’s registration, designed to forestall operators from treating monetary penalties as a value of doing enterprise.
Whereas the invoice is unlikely to go – the Progressive Conservatives maintain 80 seats within the Ontario Meeting, the Liberals simply 14, leaving Fairclough’s caucus because the third occasion moderately than the official opposition – it’s transferring in parallel with the federal Invoice S-211, titled the Nationwide Framework on Sports activities Betting Promoting Act, which has handed the Senate and is awaiting additional Home of Commons consideration below Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly secured Liberal majority.
The Canadian Gaming Affiliation issued an announcement on April 22 opposing Invoice 107, arguing that Ontario’s present framework already constitutes “among the most rigorous advertising rules in North America.” Licensed operators are already barred from promoting promotional bonuses outdoors their very own web sites, apps, and direct buyer channels, and are prohibited from advertising to high-risk cohorts, minors, or self-excluded gamers.
The Alcohol and Gaming Fee of Ontario strengthened these guidelines additional in 2024 by proscribing using athletes and celebrities in advertisements. The CGA argued the invoice would “primarily enable unlawful operators to flood social media with posts, making it not possible for Ontarians to determine licensed suppliers whereas weakening the authority of the AGCO.”
This argument mirrors a speaking level based mostly on business insights elsewhere on this planet. In the UK, analysis revealed in April by the Betting and Gaming Council has just lately forecasted that unlicensed operator advert spend will exceed that of regulated companies for the primary time by 2028. That is pushed by the identical structural sample, the place regulatory tightening on licensed operators creates house for offshore options and different noncompliant actors.
Ontario’s regulated market has grown considerably since launch. Figures from iGaming Ontario’s 2024-25 annual report present C$82.7 billion in wagers, C$2.9 billion in gaming income, 50 operators, and greater than 2.6 million energetic participant accounts.
Because the regulatory dialogue continues on a federal and provincial degree alike, Alberta is about to turn out to be the second Canadian province to launch a aggressive iGaming market in July.
