On a night out with friends last year, a young Ontario man lost a $25 bet on a hockey game — and decided to try to win his money back on blackjack, using the casino app on his phone.
When he lost that too, it spiralled into a night of gambling that saw him lose $14,000.
“We’re drinking and having fun, but … every time I go to the washroom, I’m trying to make the money back that I’ve lost — and I’m kind of just digging myself a deeper and deeper hole,” the 22-year-old said. CBC has agreed not to use his name because of how his struggles with gambling might affect his future employment.
At home that night, while everyone else is asleep, he bets the last $2,000 in his bank account. He loses, and wonders, “Is this rock bottom?”
“I felt really alone, honestly, and not really sure what I would do with myself,” he said. “I feel like I’ve let myself down, but I’ve also let my loved ones down, my girlfriend and my parents.”
The World Health Organization estimates roughly one per cent of the general population struggles with a gambling disorder, though the issue has increasingly made headlines in Canada since the federal government loosened gambling laws in 2021 to make it easier to bet on professional sports matches.
Sports-betting ads put youth at risk of gambling addiction, doctors warn
That change has given rise to gambling apps, sometimes called sportsbooks, that allow users to bet money on sporting events. Many also have built-in casinos offering games like blackjack, roulette or poker.
Among Canadians who actively gamble, 9.1 per cent were classified as having a problem gambling disorder, according to a study from Mental Health Research Canada last November.
“Young adults, particularly men aged 18-34, are at the highest risk of developing problem gambling behaviours,” the study found.
Dr. Shawn Kelly, a pediatric addiction medicine specialist, says the way our brains develop leaves teenagers and young adults particularly susceptible to the allure of gambling.
He explained that the brain’s reward centre releases “dopamine in response to anticipated rewards,” and is overactive in an adolescent brain. The parts of the brain that control that reward centre, however, have not yet fully developed.
“It’s all gas, no brakes and that applies to substance use disorder, but it actually probably applies even more accurately to gambling,” said Kelly, who is based in Ottawa.
And most people don’t outgrow this development phase until they reach 25, he said.
The 22-year-old The Current spoke with started gambling when he was 19, making $5 bets on blackjack and NBA games. He said he was drawn in by sign-up bonuses that gave him anything from $25 to $100 in free bets, as well as referral bonuses when friends signed each other up.
In 2021, the federal government made it legal to gamble on individual sporting events, as well as individual outcomes within a game, such as what a specific player might score.
Before that, the law only allowed parlay-betting — where you had to correctly predict the outcomes of a series of games to win — through government authorities, such as the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. But many Canadians opted to place their bets on a black market run by organized crime networks or on offshore sites that don’t pay Canadian taxes and offer little consumer protections.
The federal government estimated at the time that Canadians were spending about $14 billion a year in these unregulated markets, arguing that the legislative changes it was ushering in would allow provinces to direct the money back to Canadian coffers. Some provinces, like B.C. and Manitoba, kept gambling operations within government agencies, while others, like Ontario, opened up the market to private sports betting sites and casinos. Alberta intends to introduce a similar model this summer.
At the time of the 2021 changes, Ontario Sen. Marty Deacon supported the move.
“I supported the bill at the time because of what we had learned: the black market, money leaving this country, a very unethical system. And it was really quite concerning,” she said.
Deacon said what wasn’t foreseen was that advertisements for legal apps would appeal to young people, which has prompted concern in the ensuing years. In June 2023, she introduced a bill calling for a national framework to regulate sport betting advertising. Last month, a Liberal MPP in Ontario also introduced a private members bill that would create a near-total ban on all gambling-related advertising in the province.
Deacon said the aim of her bill right now is a partial ban.
“I’d love a full ban … but the bill is looking at how do we pull the reins back on something that is not healthy right now,” she said.
Paul Burns, CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association, said his industry welcomes regulation and wants to help provinces “expand their regulatory marketplaces and better protect players.”
He said there’s a requirement for operators to monitor player behaviour for risk.
“[Based on] your play patterns — whether it’s $10 a week or $1,000 a week — a player profile is created. You get outside that player profile, operators are required to intervene,” said Burns.
Several operators have been fined for various infractions, including failing to monitor and intervene. In one case, a gambler lost more than $2 million over several months.
Five months before he lost $14,000, the 22-year-old decided to take a three-month break from gambling. He felt it becoming a problem, and hit pause after talking with his family.
When the timeout was up in February 2025, he felt he’d gotten a handle on it — and started again, albeit after setting some in-app limits on the amount of money he could gamble.
“I think my dad was pretty against it. He was like, ‘You’re playing a dangerous game,’ essentially. And I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever Dad.’”
Within a few months, gambling was again dominating his life.
“Because my parents had expressed concern about it and my girlfriend, I started to hide it more,” he said, adding that he got around those self-imposed limits by signing up to new apps.
“I would go and place bets in the washroom in the middle of the game … it’s a shame spiral, honestly, but I was also winning money and it was hard to tell myself to stop.”
He helped legalize online gambling — now he wants to rein it in
Everything came crashing down when the Montreal Canadiens lost to the Maple Leafs on April 25, 2025 — the game where his $25 bet turned into a $14,000 loss.
The next day, buckling under “the sheer amount of shame and guilt,” he told his dad.
“He was very understanding about it. I mean, concerned and scared, but he wasn’t mad,” he remembers.
His father found him a treatment program at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto, which involved weeks of therapy, often in groups with other gamblers.
According to Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Gaming, the provincial government spent just over $70 million last year on gambling-related treatment programs, awareness campaigns and research. The online industry spent an additional $23 million, voluntarily, on responsible gambling campaigns, and paid $807 million in provincial taxes to Ontario in 2025.
The young man hasn’t gambled in over a year, and says he’s doing well these days. He can watch sports with friends but said he never wants to go back to placing bets.
“I think I always knew in the back of my mind that … eventually the house wins.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with problem gambling disorder, here’s where to look for help:
