Ontario Teen Online Gambling Jumps 50%, Survey Finds

Kyle Kevin

iGaming Writer

Fact Checked

One in eight Ontario teenagers gambled online last year, a 50% jump from 2023. Sports betting surged tenfold since 2019, and four in five students saw gambling ads in the past month. The data comes from Canada’s longest-running school survey.

Ontario teen online gambling has surged 50% in two years, according to the latest Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey published by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Twelve per cent of students in Grades 7 to 12 gambled online in the past year, up from 8% in the 2023 survey. One in 10 placed sports bets. One in five engaged in some form of gambling, online or offline. The survey covered 11,108 students across 246 schools in 42 school boards. Data was collected between December 2024 and June 2025. The findings land as Ontario operates North America’s largest regulated online gambling market, with 48 licensed operators running 83 websites. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, those sites logged 2.6 million active accounts and more than CA$82 billion in wagers. The advertising volume is equally staggering. Four in five students said they had seen or heard an online gambling ad in the past month. Roughly one-quarter encountered them daily. Sports betting was the most popular form among teens. The survey first tracked online gambling in 2003 and added internet sports betting questions in 2017. Since then, sports betting participation among students has jumped tenfold, from 1% in 2019 to 10% in 2025. Eighth graders showed the sharpest increase, with 10% gambling online last year versus 4.6% in 2023. Female participation also doubled, from 3% to 6%.

The Numbers Behind the Ontario Teen Gambling Spike

The OSDUHS is Canada’s longest-running school survey, administered every two years since 1977. The 2025 edition is the most comprehensive snapshot of Ontario youth behaviour in the post-pandemic era. The 12% online gambling figure is not an outlier. It is part of a clear trend. Online gambling participation has been rising steadily since the survey began tracking it. The 50% jump from 2023 is the sharpest increase on record. Sports betting is the dominant form. Ten per cent of students placed sports wagers during the school year. That is up from 1% in 2019. The tenfold increase coincides with two regulatory milestones. In 2021, the federal government legalised single-event sports betting. In 2022, Ontario became the first Canadian province to open its online gambling market to private operators. The market now hosts 48 operators running 83 websites. The competitive framework has driven aggressive marketing. Principal investigator Hayley Hamilton, a senior scientist at CAMH, said the numbers are alarming. “Increased accessibility, and the fact that gambling is online — it’s opened up to young people more than in the past.” The age breakdown is telling. Eighth graders showed the largest increase, with 10% gambling online versus 4.6% in 2023. That is the 13-14 age group. They are not legally allowed to gamble. Yet one in ten are doing so. The gender gap is narrowing. Female online gambling participation doubled from 3% to 6%. Boys still gamble at higher rates, but the gap is closing. That suggests gambling is becoming normalised across genders, not just among the traditionally male-dominated sports betting demographic. The survey also found that one in 10 students played video games for five or more hours a day. Seventeen per cent had symptoms of video-gaming problems, up from 9% in 2007. The overlap between gaming and gambling is well documented. Loot boxes, in-game currencies, and skin betting blur the lines. Students who game heavily may be more susceptible to gambling transitions.

Advertising Exposure and the Normalisation Effect

This is the first time the OSDUHS has asked students about gambling ad exposure. The results are stark. Eighty per cent of students saw or heard an online gambling ad in the past month. Twenty-three per cent encountered them daily. That is not incidental exposure. It is saturation. Ontario’s iGaming framework allows licensed operators to advertise on television, digital platforms, and social media. The rules prohibit targeting minors. However, the volume of advertising means minors see it anyway. Sports broadcasts, social media feeds, and influencer content are not age-gated effectively. Dr. Peter Selby, principal investigator at CAMH’s INTREPID Lab, said the results raise questions about how young people access gambling products despite age restrictions. He also flagged the influence of widespread advertising on attitudes and behaviours. “We need stronger measures to reduce youth exposure during a vulnerable time of brain development,” he said. CAMH has previously called for specific restrictions. These include limits on celebrity and athlete endorsements, a whistle-to-whistle ban on gambling ads during sports broadcasts, and a broader public health approach to preventing gambling-related harms. The normalisation effect is real. When gambling ads appear during every sports broadcast, every social media scroll, and every commute, they cease to be remarkable. They become background noise. For teenagers, that background noise shapes attitudes. If gambling is everywhere, it must be normal. If it is normal, it must be safe. That is the logic the advertising volume creates. The industry argues that advertising drives revenue and that Ontario’s CA$82 billion in wagers funds public services. The public health argument is that those revenues come with a cost measured in addiction, debt, and damaged relationships among young people.

Problem Gambling and Mental Health Links

The gambling numbers are not isolated. They sit within a broader mental health picture. Forty-six per cent of students reported moderate to serious psychological distress. That is down from 51% in 2023 but still double the 24% recorded a decade ago. Thirty per cent rated their mental health as fair or poor, down from 38% in 2023 but up from 15% a decade ago. The pandemic spike is easing. The long-term trend remains troubling. The link between psychological distress and gambling is well established. People experiencing anxiety, depression, or isolation are more likely to gamble as a coping mechanism. The OSDUHS does not establish causation. It shows correlation. However, the correlation is strong enough to warrant concern. A 2024 study by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction found that 69.4% of Canadians aged 18 to 29 who gambled online met the criteria for problem gambling. Roughly 25% experienced high-level gambling-related harms, including credit card debt and damaged relationships. A separate study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that gambling-related contacts to support helplines among people aged 15 to 24 surged 317% after Ontario legalised online gambling. The increase was almost exclusively among boys and young men. At CAMH’s outpatient problem gambling clinic, psychotherapist Megha Vatsya has noticed an uptick in younger clients. In the past year, she has started receiving referrals for teenagers, including one as young as 15. That did not happen when she joined the clinic in 2019. “The biggest thing I’m hearing is either poker or sports betting,” she said. “A lot of times we’ll hear things like, ‘All my friends are doing it, I don’t want to miss out.'” The fear of missing out is a powerful driver. When peers are betting, abstaining feels like exclusion. For teenagers already struggling with social connection and mental health, that pressure is acute.

What Regulators and Advocates Want Next

The survey findings intensify an already heated debate. Ontario’s iGaming model has been held up as a success story. It generates tax revenue, creates jobs, and channels gambling into a regulated framework. The counter-argument is that the framework has normalised gambling among minors and created a public health crisis. CAMH wants stronger advertising restrictions. The whistle-to-whistle ban, already in place in the UK, would prohibit gambling ads during live sports broadcasts. Limits on celebrity endorsements would reduce the glamour factor. Stricter age verification would make it harder for underage users to access platforms. The industry has pushed back. Operators say they already have robust age verification and that advertising rules prohibit targeting minors. They argue that restricting ads would simply push gamblers to unregulated offshore sites. That argument has some merit. Ontario’s regulated market has captured a significant share of gambling activity that previously flowed offshore. However, the OSDUHS data suggests the regulated market is also capturing teenagers. The question is whether the regulatory framework can be tightened without undermining the market’s viability. Alberta is watching closely. The province is following Ontario’s model and preparing to open its own competitive iGaming market. The OSDUHS findings will inform that debate. If Ontario’s experience shows that liberalised gambling advertising correlates with increased youth participation, Alberta may impose stricter rules from the outset. The broader North American context is equally relevant. A 2025 TransUnion US Betting Report found that Gen Z accounted for 34% of all betting activity in Q2 2025, while millennials represented 42%. Younger demographics are driving growth across digital gambling products. The OSDUHS findings suggest that trend starts even earlier than adulthood. For ongoing coverage of gambling regulation and youth protection policy, AGBrief tracks the sector closely.

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