CAMH Survey Finds Ontario Youth Gambling Surge
Online gambling among Ontario students has risen sharply since the province opened its regulated online market, according to new survey data from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
The 2025 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) found 12% of students had gambled online in the past year, up from 8% in 2023, with online sports betting alone climbing from 1% in 2019 to 10% in 2025.
A Tenfold Rise In Youth Sports Betting
CAMH, Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, has run the OSDUHS every two years since 1977, making it the longest-running school-based youth survey in the country.
For the 2025 edition, researchers surveyed 11,108 students in grades seven to 12 across 246 schools and 42 school boards between December 2024 and June 2025.
Online sports betting was the fastest-growing category, rising from 1% of students in 2019 to 10% in 2025, a tenfold increase CAMH called “alarming.” Nearly a quarter of students, 23%, said they were exposed to online gambling advertising every day.
Researchers Point To Advertising & Access
Dr. Peter Selby, Principal Investigator of CAMH's INTREPID Lab, said the growth in underage gambling raises questions about how young people are getting around age checks. “The rapid growth of online gambling among young people is really concerning,” Selby said in the CAMH release.
“The results raise important questions about how young people are able to access gambling products despite age restrictions, and about the influence that widespread gambling advertising and its normalization have on attitudes and behaviours. We need stronger measures to reduce youth exposure during a vulnerable time of brain development.”
CAMH has previously called for tighter restrictions on gambling marketing, including limits on celebrity and athlete endorsements and a whistle-to-whistle style ban on gambling promotion during sports broadcasts.
Casino Games Hub
Ontario's Market Has Grown Quickly
Ontario opened its online gambling and betting market to licensed private operators in April 2022 and is now considered one of North America's most competitive regulated markets, with close to 50 operators running more than 80 online casino and sports betting platforms, including brands available through GDC's Canadian betting and casino coverage.
In the province's 2024-25 fiscal year, 2.6 million active player accounts wagered more than $82 billion. Alberta became the second Canadian province to launch a regulated online gambling market last month.
The findings echo a separate rise in gambling-related harm reported elsewhere in Canada: a recent Canadian Medical Association Journal study found growing gambling helpline contacts among boys and young men, and a Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction study found nearly a quarter of young gamblers aged 18 to 29 reported substantial gambling-related harm.
