MPs moving to restrict gambling ads in Canada

(cbc.ca)

97 points | by Teever 3 hours ago

5 comments

  • fudged71 3 minutes ago
    Its pretty remarkable what happened as soon as the regulation was loosened. In Alberta it feels as though these companies bought every single ad spot available. I can’t walk, drive, browse in any direction without seeing a gambling ad somewhere. Its not uncommon for me to see them in two or three places simultaneously. A real boring dystopia.
  • geooff_ 2 hours ago
    Good riddance. Why did we ever allow this to happen? It's an entirely self-inflicted public health crisis.
    • jerf 5 minutes ago
      There are a number of things that cycle because the solution ends up being successful enough that the next generation doesn't realize there is a problem being solved. Chesterton's Fence, except on a generational timescale it's Chesterton's Oscillating Fence.

      100% squashing gambling has generally not been successful, but the strategy of fencing it away from most of society and keeping it in a set of defined places that require people to actively seek it out has been successful enough that people forget why we don't allow gambling in every convenience store in the country. I'd say the additional "convenience" of having it in your pocket all the time is a new nuance, but doesn't necessarily change the fundamental equations.

      We will relearn. Our grandchildren will forget again. (Unless things have really changed.)

    • jbm 1 hour ago
      Ditto, this is a cancer. Wayne Gretzky is dead to me because of his support of these ads. The greatest Canadian athlete of the 80s and 90s is now Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

      On a more depressing note, wasn't this always a thing? I remember being in 4th grade when a classmate brought in something called "Mise-o-jou", which was being run by the Quebec government.

      • ipaddr 55 minutes ago
        The guy who sold out in the 80s and moved to LA is now dead to you over gambling ads? Very delayed reaction.
        • jbm 30 minutes ago
          I am from Montreal and (I can't believe this but it is 100% true) I was bullied in my (English-speaking) Montreal-area grade school for wearing non-Oilers merch. I was pleased when he left. (Yes, this is the home of Rocket Richard, the Pocket Rocket, Jean Beliveau, Guy Lafleur and Patrick Roy at the time)

          I think the online element hates Gretzky because of something about the order of Canada but that does nothing to me and I honestly don't care. However, the gambling ads literally damage the fabric of the country and ruin the lives of average people, for a guy who made more in an year than many people made in a lifetime.

    • andrewla 30 minutes ago
      I was going to upvote this comment but changed my mind because I think although we both see gambling ads as a scourge, we could not be more far apart in our reasons.

      I could give two shits about the "public health crisis". People have agency, they can choose what to do with their lives and their money and I'm okay with the reaping and sowing lining up together.

      I'm concerned in that I find the focus on gambling presented so prominently to be offensive, period. That is, I am offended. This is Just Wrong. I enjoy watching (some) sports, I appreciate the drama, I love the moments of superhuman feats and the balance of luck and skill and strategy and tactics and grand strategy and analysis and all of the things that it presents.

      A friendly wager is fine, going by a sports book is fine once in a while. Even betting on an outcome on an online sports book is fine. It is a vice, sure, but who among us does not enjoy stepping outside the bounds of "proper" behavior. But this pervasive push to treat it as a normal and expected and typical thing offends me. It is a vice, and it should be done with the appropriate amount of shame and friction that we tolerate of almost all vices. It should not be normalized and it should not be glorified.

      • ambione 4 minutes ago
        May you or your loved ones never become afflicted with an addiction, lest you have to reassess your understanding and stance regarding addiction.
      • pixl97 25 minutes ago
        >People have agency, they can choose what to do with their lives and their money and I'm okay with the reaping and sowing lining up together.

        Heh, I wonder how this fits in with how AI thinks about it.

        >https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50197313

        >Every AI model has the same “controversial” take on humans

        You have far less agency than you think you do. We are automatons in so much of our behavior. You do what your parents tell you, your parents do what the church tells them, and you all buy ice cold Coca-Cola because the TV tells you to. In bulk we are statistically predictable. This is why we have laws against particular drugs, huge numbers of us will high ourselves to death and collapse the society around us. Society itself is a remover of agency. Animals can do whatever they want, humans are constrained socially in what we're allowed to do.

        We really do have a false idea of who we are.

    • throwaway_95283 1 hour ago
      We used to have freedom and self-control.
      • TheOtherHobbes 1 hour ago
        The gambling industry has never shown evidence of self-control.
        • throwaway_95283 1 hour ago
          They seem to be pretty diligent about it, I mean once I hit on 17 and won on 22, but generally they are pretty vigilant about it.
      • kingstnap 36 minutes ago
        You can still gamble.

        When it comes to hard drugs I can understand why there are reasonable arguments for legalization of personal use.

        Idk how many reasonable arguments extend the overton window to thinking that meth should be advertised seemingly all over the place. Because gambling ads are actually everywhere.

      • sandworm101 37 minutes ago
        No. They are called "vices" because you get stuck in them. Ten thousand studies on mice tell us that addiction isn't learned morality but innate biology.

        We also pass laws regulating murder/arson/theft even though those too can be avoided through self control.

      • AlexandrB 53 minutes ago
        Modern sports gambling ads amount to fraud because winners are prevented from winning more through wager restrictions. The whole industry can only exist because it cheats and lies.
      • Cpoll 1 hour ago
        We used to be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Being influencable by advertising is a moral failing. </s>
  • anukin 2 hours ago
    Hopefully they ban the neo betting prediction markets as well
    • bethekidyouwant 1 hour ago
      no one is banning gambling (impossible with the internet which is why they legalized it..) just advertising on.. tv I guess. because you cant stop advertising on the internet..
      • ipaddr 52 minutes ago
        They had a ban in place for years and it worked. They have a ban for non kyc cryto markets. It is easy to lean on payment processors and stop 90% of it.
        • stephbook 42 minutes ago
          Yeah you just say that customers lost their money illegally, make the companies give the lost money back and watch them implement know-your-customer real quick, all on their own.
        • jst1fthsdys 32 minutes ago
          Yeah, they had no problem banning online poker that way. Annoying these garbage sports betting sites are allowed now but you still can't play online poker outside of a few states.
          • bethekidyouwant 20 minutes ago
            This is not an accurate history of online poker.
      • criddell 37 minutes ago
        I see lots of gambling ads online but I don't see a lot of ads for cigarettes. Apparently there are some levers that can be pulled.
        • bethekidyouwant 20 minutes ago
          I don’t get it can you rent a server and make a cigarette company in an afternoon?
    • throwaway_95283 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
      • wiseowise 1 hour ago
        Nothing normal about gambling.
      • sheepscreek 1 hour ago
        I think it's mutually beneficial, you're not somewhere you don't like.
        • throwaway_95283 1 hour ago
          ooh boy, one would think right? Its def beneficial for me, but many Canadians don't like it.
  • bryanlarsen 1 hour ago
    "curb" not "ban". Boo.
  • ThrowawayTestr 2 hours ago
    We banned smoking ads, gambling should be no different.