Ontario Gambling Disorder ER Visits Nearly Double Since iGaming Launch

⏳ 3 min read

A peer-reviewed study published September 16, 2026 has found that Ontario emergency department visits for gambling disorders were 99% above pre-expansion projections by June 2025 — roughly three years after the province launched its regulated private online gambling market in April 2022. The research, led by Dr. Daniel Myran of the University of Toronto and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, tracked 17.3 million Ontario residents across a 14-year window.

The study identified 952 gambling-disorder ER visits involving 757 patients between January 2012 and June 2025, with the rate accelerating at roughly 7% per quarter following market liberalisation. The findings land at a politically charged moment: Ontario's market now hosts 83 licensed betting sites, has logged $82.7 billion wagered in 2024, and Alberta — which launched its own regulated market in July 2026 — is monitoring outcomes closely.

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Study Findings

The ICES/University of Toronto research team compared observed ER visit rates against a counterfactual model — what visit rates would have looked like had the market never expanded. By June 2025, actual visits were running 99% higher than that baseline, a figure the authors describe as statistically robust after controlling for pandemic disruptions and population growth.

The study also cross-referenced its findings against a parallel analysis published in March 2026, which found a 300%+ surge in gambling helpline calls among males aged 15–24 since market launch. Lead author Dr. Myran described the cumulative picture as potentially representing "the tip of the iceberg."

• One-third of all gambling-disorder ER visits resulted in hospital admission.
• More than 70% of visits involved concurrent mental health conditions or substance use disorders.
• The study covered the period from January 2012 to June 2025, providing a long pre-market baseline for comparison.

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Who Is Most Affected

The sharpest increase was among young males. The study found a 154% increase in ER presentations specifically among males aged 10–29, while nearly 75% of all gambling-disorder visitors across all ages were male. Separately, Ontario's most recent Student Drug Use Survey found 1 in 8 teenagers gambling online and 1 in 10 placing sports bets — figures that predate Alberta's market opening and the most recent advertising cycle.

A Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) survey cited in the study found that 69.4% of young adults aged 18–29 who gambled online met criteria for problem gambling. Dr. Tara Elton-Marshall of the University of Ottawa, commenting on the research, called it "a really critical study" providing evidence of "clinically significant harms."

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Ontario iGaming Market Context

Ontario's regulated market, overseen by iGaming Ontario (iGO) and licensed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), is the largest provincially regulated online gambling market in Canada. The figures below place the health data against market scale.

Metric	Figure	Period
Licensed iGaming operators	83	As of mid-2026
Active player accounts	2.6 million	iGO 2025 annual report
Total amount wagered	$82.7 billion	2024 calendar year
Market launch date	April 4, 2022	Ontario
ER visits above expected baseline	+99%	By June 2025
ER increase, males aged 10–29	+154%	Post-market launch

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Regulatory and Policy Pressure

The study's publication immediately reignited calls for stronger responsible gambling obligations. Operators in Ontario are currently required to offer the BetGuard self-exclusion programme, but enrolment remains voluntary. Advocates are now pushing iGO and the AGCO to mandate deposit limits for new accounts, restrict bonus advertising targeted at young men, and publish quarterly harm-indicator data rather than annual figures.

The findings also arrive as the Supreme Court of Canada prepares to hear oral arguments on October 7, 2026 in a landmark case over cross-border iGaming player pooling. Provincial lottery corporations opposing that expansion — including Loto-Québec, BCLC, Atlantic Lottery, and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries — are expected to cite the ICES research as evidence that market growth has outpaced harm-reduction infrastructure. For Alberta's Alberta iGaming Corporation (AiGC), launched just two months prior, the study functions as an early warning and a benchmark against which its own public-health outcomes will be measured.

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Sources

Primary and secondary sources used in the preparation of this article, listed in order of priority.

It makes me worry about a public-health crisis — this is the tip of the iceberg of something. How big is that iceberg?

— Dr. Daniel Myran, Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa & Senior Author, ICES Study · September 16, 2026