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Or maybe it should just be called gambling? I don't know. Regardless, the ads are everywhere. I've been a baseball fan since I was a teenager. I watch the Blue Jays, and catch most games. Previously, when the games were available via MLB.tv, there were no ads. It was glorious: just baseball and a wavering image during commercial breaks. Then, a couple of years ago, Rogers (the corporate owners of the Jays) decided to black out the Jays on MLB.tv. If you were living in Canada, you had to either pay up for Sportsnet Now, or, you know, sail the high seas.
The Ugly Truth Behind Fun Gambling Ads
Nearly Half of Canadians Think Gambling Ads Have Gotten Out of Hand
I did the latter for a while, but eventually decided to do the right thing and not have to deal with the general jankiness of pirate streams. And while the official stream doesn't have the usual TV ads, it definitely does still have ads embedded periodically.
And right now, it seems like they're all betting related. The odds before the game. People telling you that you can bet on this or that in-game. It's endless. And though it seems like it's been going on forever, it's apparently only been legal for about a year anda half.
Canada legalizes single-game sports betting, opening up billion-dollar market
There's been legal gambling in Canada for ages. It's just that they required you to go to a casino, or to the corner store. That little bit of friction to nudge you towards not doing it. I remember as a kid, there'd be Sports Select ads on TV all the time. But, as usual, technology has made things easier - and worse. Instead of having to go down to the convenience store and buy a slip, you can just whip out your phone. The easiness is insidious: rather than having to make a very conscious choice to get up, get in the car, etc, it's now an almost automatic action.
It feels wrong. It feels like watching cigarette ads in the 50s or something. The odds are not in your favour - they never are, or else all the companies would, on average, go bankrupt quickly. So why play? Why give your money away, and why allow this to be legal in the first place?
Who gambles and who experiences gambling problems in Canada
Statistics Canada reports two thirds of Canadians reported gambling in the last twelve months. And granted, not all of this is going to be online sports books - there's the usual physical options available, such as casinos, scratch tickets, the lottery. But given that problem gambling is now recognized as a public health concern, and as a disorder in the DSM, why make the conditions worse? Who benefits from this?
It's not like the ads are the only in-game gambling being hawked, either: there's also the 50/50 put on by the Jays, the winner getting half, the other half going to their charitable foundation. The tickets are available to anyone in Ontario. The current amount is shown in-broadcast. It's currently in the hundreds of thousands.
As much as I'd like gambling to go away forever, there's no way it will. It's too much of a moneymaker. But even if we allow that governments can use gambling as a way of generating revenue ostensibly for the public good, why are private interests also allowed in? To make money off a small but significant number of people who can't control their habit? All you need to do is set things up so that the house wins more than the better. You'll pay out a bunch, sometimes a lot. But on average, you'll definitely come out ahead.
I don't have an answer. But I'm tired of this, of all the ways in which organizations work to make people's lives worse. And maybe it's a small thing next to all the awful things going on in the world. But there's something about the particularly predatorial nature of the industry that sets me on edge. We can choose to do good things, and to make people's lives better, not worse. So, why don't we?