> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thecanadareport.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Ontario Gambling Disorder ER Visits Double After Online Betting Expansion - URL: https://www.thecanadareport.ca/ontario-gambling-er-visits-double/ - Published: 2026-09-16T17:21:42.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-16T17:32:10.000Z - Description: Ontario gambling-related ER visits nearly doubled after online betting expanded, with young males driving the sharpest rise. - Author: Steve Cogbill - Tags: Daily News, Ontario | Sourced from 4 independent sources · 1 point in dispute | | ------------------------------------------------------- | Richmond News, Temerty Medicine, Head Topics, and The Globe and Mail Sources agree on most key facts but differ on 1 point. 10 key facts · 10 corroborated · 1 disputed Where sources differ End date of the emergency-department data analyzed in the study Richmond News: The study analyzed data from January 2012 to September 2025. The Globe and Mail: The study analyzed emergency-room visits between January 2012 and June 2025. This summary is compiled from the independent sources listed above. Ontario’s gambling boom is now being measured not just in wagers, but in crisis visits to emergency departments. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that Ontario emergency-department visits for gambling disorders nearly doubled after Canada legalized single-event sports betting and Ontario expanded online gambling to private operators. Researchers examined 952 gambling-disorder emergency visits made by 757 people in Ontario over about 14 years. ## The gambling policy shift Canada legalized single-event sports betting in August 2021\. Ontario opened its regulated private online gambling market in April 2022. Since then, Ontario’s private online gambling market has grown into a major legal industry, with more than 80 gambling and betting sites and tens of billions of dollars in annual wagers. The study does not portray emergency departments as the full measure of gambling harm. Researchers said these visits represent severe crisis cases and likely capture only a small share of broader gambling-related harm. ## What the study found By the end of the study period, the overall rate of gambling-related emergency visits was estimated to be 99 per cent higher than expected. The rise was not evenly distributed. It occurred among boys and men aged 10 to 44, while researchers found no significant change among females. Males aged 10 to 29 had the largest increase, with visits 154 per cent higher than expected by the end of the study period. Males aged 30 to 44 had visits 116 per cent higher than expected. ## Young males drove the rise “The concentration of the increase among younger males is particularly concerning given the rapid growth and promotion of online sports betting, which target this demographic,” researcher Ryan Forrest said in source materials from Temerty Medicine. Forrest also pointed beyond the individual gambler. “The consequences of rising gambling involve not just harm to people who are gambling but wider effects on families and communities,” he said. That wider concern is central to the study’s public-health message. Emergency departments tend to see people when problems have already reached a crisis point, not when risky behaviour first begins. ## Crisis visits and compounding harms Most gambling-disorder emergency visits involved another mental-health condition or substance-related harm. Daniel Myran, another researcher involved in the work, described those cases as the acute end of a much larger problem. “Most people experiencing gambling problems will never seek care, so the concern is that the increases in emergency department visits for gambling disorders we observed may be revealing much larger increases in gambling-related harm,” Myran said. He also told The Globe and Mail that his first reaction to the numbers was alarm. “It makes me worry about a public-health crisis,” he said. “The people in the study are just a tiny, tiny fraction of the people who gamble, and a tiny fraction of the people with gambling problems.” ## A market with public-health stakes Ontario’s experience is now being watched closely because the province combined two major changes: the federal legalization of single-event sports betting and the provincial opening of a regulated private online gambling market. The study’s findings add a stark health-system marker to a market already defined by scale: more than 80 legal gambling and betting sites, and annual wagers in the tens of billions of dollars. Myran framed the Ontario data as a warning. “Data from Ontario provide an important caution about the potential harms that can accompany rapid expansion of online gambling,” he said. For researchers, the emergency-department numbers are not the whole story. They are the part visible at the hospital door, when gambling-related harm has already become severe enough to require urgent care. **Reader-funded. No ads. No paywall.** The Canada Report is independent, reader-funded Canadian news — no advertisers, nothing behind a paywall, kept free for everyone. If you value it, you can help keep it that way. [Support The Canada Report →](https://www.thecanadareport.ca/support/) --- [*Source 1*](https://www.richmond-news.com/national-sports/er-visits-for-gambling-rise-in-ontario-since-expansion-of-online-betting-study-12785374?ref=thecanadareport.ca) *|* [*Source 2*](https://temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/news/emergency-room-visits-gambling-disorders-nearly-doubled-after-expanded-online-gambling-market?ref=thecanadareport.ca) *|* [*Source 3*](https://ca.headtopics.com/news/ontario-s-gambling-boom-drives-surge-in-emergency-visits-87792550?ref=thecanadareport.ca) *|* [*Source 4*](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-gambling-related-er-visits-have-almost-doubled-since-ontario-opened/?ref=thecanadareport.ca) ## Sign up for The Canada Report Your modern digest of Canadian news. Friendly, clear, and in your inbox. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.