CAMH Survey Finds Ontario Teen Gambling Jumped Sharply Since 2023
CAMH's youth survey shows online gambling among Ontario students rose 50% since 2023, as regulators grapple with age-verification failures.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited by the ON360 newsroom.
Ontario teenagers are gambling online at markedly higher rates than two years ago, according to new research from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The findings arrive as the province’s regulated iGaming market continues to expand and as regulators face fresh questions about age verification.
CAMH’s Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS), the country’s longest-running school-based youth survey, found one in 10 students reported betting on sports online at least once in the past year. One in eight, or 12 per cent, said they had taken part in other forms of online gambling, up from 8 per cent in 2023, a 50 per cent increase. When online and offline betting are combined, one in five students, or 20 per cent, reported gambling of some kind.
A large, detailed sample
Researchers surveyed 11,108 students in grades 7 through 12 across 1,147 classes, 246 schools and 42 school boards between December 2024 and June 2025. The survey has run every two years since 1977 and has tracked online gambling since 2003. Questions on sports betting specifically were added in 2017, four years before Canada legalized single-event wagering.
Dr. Peter Selby, principal investigator of CAMH’s INTREPID Lab, called the growth in online gambling among young people “really concerning.” He said the results raise questions about how minors are getting around age restrictions and pointed to widespread gambling advertising as a factor in normalizing the behaviour.
“We need stronger measures to reduce youth exposure during a vulnerable time of brain development,” Selby said in a CAMH release.
Hayley Hamilton, the survey’s lead investigator and co-director of CAMH’s Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, told the Globe and Mail the numbers reflect a genuine problem. “I just look at the numbers, and I think, ‘Oh boy. There is an issue,'” she said, noting that gambling’s move online has made it far more accessible to young people than in the past.
Growth follows market expansion
The survey’s findings track a period of rapid growth in Ontario’s legal gambling market. The province opened online gambling to private operators in 2022 and now hosts close to 50 licensed operators running more than 80 casino and sports betting platforms. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, 2.6 million active player accounts wagered more than $82 billion.
Alberta became the second province to launch a regulated online gambling market last month.
Other research points in the same direction. A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found gambling-related helpline calls climbing, particularly among boys and young men aged 15 to 24. Since Ontario’s commercial market launched, men and boys aged 15 to 44 have accounted for 60.3 per cent of all gambling-related helpline contacts, and 88.9 per cent of contacts specifically tied to sports betting.
Girls are not immune. The CAMH survey found 6 per cent of female students reported gambling online in the latest results, double the 3 per cent recorded in 2023.
A separate report from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, released late last year, found nearly a quarter of gamblers aged 18 to 29 experience substantial harm from the activity. Within that group, 23.5 per cent reported high levels of harm, including depleted savings, mounting credit card debt, regret and feelings of personal failure.
Age checks under scrutiny
The results land weeks after the AGCO fined online casino operator Betty Gaming $120,000 for failures that allowed underage players to access its platform. AGCO chief executive Karin Schnarr said age verification is fundamental to Ontario’s regulated market.
“The legal age requirement is one of the most basic and important safeguards in Ontario’s regulated gaming market,” Schnarr said, adding that operators are responsible for confirming their systems work correctly before going live.
Ontario’s licensed operators are required to offer tools such as deposit limits and self-exclusion. Anyone concerned about their own gambling, or that of someone under 19, can contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 for free, confidential support.