Deachman: Heads or Tails: Does Canada have a problem with sports betting?

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What’s the most you’ve ever seen lost on a coin toss?
Mister?
I said how much is the most you’ve ever seen lose on a coin toss.
Coin toss?
Coin toss.
I don’t know. People generally don’t bet on a coin toss. Usually it’s more like just to
fix something.

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— Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

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Well, that was then, I think, as I researched the history of Super Bowl coin tosses, looking for an edge. These days people bet on coin tosses, and I will too. I opened an account at BetMGM online sports book and deposited $20, all of which I will bet on heads or tails.

But which?

Before Sunday’s game, Tails had won 29 Super Bowl pitches and lost 27. Tails had also won six of the previous 10 Super Bowls. Clearly, he was the stronger side of the coin.

But Heads had won two of the last three Super Bowls. Could it be in the early days of a dynasty?

I put my money in cross. They are the defending champions, after all.

Beyond the initial coin toss, I’m not a fan of soccer. I prefer to watch hockey, although my enjoyment of the game has been put to the test recently after Parliament, citing numerous benefits to the economy, passed Bill C-218, the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, in the summer of 2021. After the Ontario government gave it the go-ahead here, the NHL and sportsbooks accepted it like white rice.

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The idea was that the law would remove single-game gambling from suspected offshore criminal organizations and place it in the hands of local elected officials, who would in turn regulate the industry and, as the bill’s title promises, make it safe. . Instead of having to bet on a few games and win them all, called a parlay, punters can bet on individual games or even on events during a game, such as a coin toss.

The eyes of the sports leagues lit up like slot machines at the millions it would bring in advertising; the casinos and their employees were delighted; sports betting companies saw a new multi-billion dollar market open to them; provincial governments would take advantage of a new source of income; and everyday sports players, forced for years to place multiple bets, were finally legally able to bet on individual games.

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Putting aside whatever Pete Rose has taught us about sports and gambling as bedfellows, I wonder if the MPs who voted for the bill considered how it would alter the look of sports broadcasts or their harmful effects and the creation of problem players. , especially among the young.

When Ontario handed over the reins of legal betting to private companies last April, professional sports changed. Watching Hockey Night in Canada is a complete indoctrination into the world of betting. Televised NHL games are riddled with on-track CGI ads urging viewers to visit betting apps. During the intermissions, where Coach’s Corner could have provided an analysis of the previous period’s ice action, the commentators now discuss the betting action: the changing odds, the overs and unders. I never thought I would miss Don Cherry, but that has been one of the results of this new normal.

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Gambling sites state that users must be 19 or older and warn them to “always gamble responsibly,” but anyone with a debit or credit card and the wit to lie about their age can sign up. Celebrity endorsements from the likes of NHLers Connor McDavid certainly don’t deter young adults from gambling.

April Laithwaite, an addiction counselor at CMHA Thames Valley Addiction & Mental Health Services in London, Ontario, says the increased exposure to discussions about gambling on broadcast makes it especially difficult for young people to separate gambling from sports.

“They’re saturated with this gambling talk,” he says, “and we’re looking at the underdeveloped brain: Your frontal cortex, or the executive function part of your brain, is still developing well into your 20s.

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“If gambling starts to take root and it’s what you see when you watch sports, and sports are everywhere, and now sports gambling is everywhere, and the two tend to marry together, it’s very difficult. separate them”.

Suicide rates, Laithwaite adds, are higher among people with gambling problems than among people with other chemical addictions.

According to McGill University’s International Center for Youth Gambling and High-Risk Behaviors, four to six percent of high school students are addicted to gambling, while an additional six to eight percent run the game. risk of developing a serious gambling problem.

Additionally, a 2007 study for the Quebec government indicated that ads portraying gambling as fun, social, and risk-free made four in 10 teens and teens want to try it. Given the current ubiquity of gambling ads, it’s hard to imagine that number being any lower now.

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It should be noted that the CMHA is neutral regarding gambling. After all, for many people it is not a problem. It’s when gamers get addicted to the dopamine response they get from the game that it can become a problem. When it does, there is no blackout related to the overdose. With no physiological limit to how much a person can gamble, there is no limit to the potential financial cost.

It is still too early to get full data pointing to the effects of Bill C-218.

However, the Problem Gambling Helpline of Ontario (OPGH) began tracking online gambling in June 2021, finding that mentions of online gambling gradually increased through March 2022. , just over 40 calls per month. That number rose to 60 last April with increased online gambling advertising, and reached 111 last October. Online gambling now makes up the majority of calls to OPGH, at 55 percent.

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Ottawa Public Health has written to the Ontario government, recommending a reduction in the number and frequency of online gambling advertisements; and restrictions on ads that present gambling as a solution to social, personal, or financial problems, or that encourage gambling as a response to boredom.

Meanwhile, last fall, gambling companies in the UK were banned from using celebrities with “strong youth appeal” in advertising.

The government can be praised, one supposes, for finding revenue streams that don’t raise taxes across the board, but it seems a safe bet that this will simply create more social problems while lowering the quality of the product.

I asked a friend to text me the result of the coin toss. He arrived at 6:37 pm “Tails” was all she said. My $20 had grown to $39, with some of the juice, the missing dollar, presumably going to BetMGM shills Wayne Gretzky and Auston Matthews. I didn’t watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. But as I collected my meager winnings, I couldn’t help but wonder who lost more than one game that day.