In April 2022, Ontario became the first province in Canada to regulate online gambling and sports. This opened the door to an industry that brought in $1.4 billion in revenue over the next year, making Ontario one of North America’s top five online gambling industries.
Quarterly wagers have more than quadrupled since iGaming Ontario (iGO) launched in 2022 and continue to grow, reaching 18.7 billion in the second quarter of 2024, and topping 72 billion in the past year. Despite this massive industry growth and revenue, we lack reliable data on how this shift affects Ontarians. As researchers working in the field of gambling studies, we feel a duty to highlight these risks, but are increasingly concerned about the lack of an independent research body in Ontario to monitor the situation.
