1 in 10 Ontario Students Now Place Sports Bets, Up From 1 in 100 in 2017: CAMH

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A bet placed on a phone can look like a small, private act, but the latest Ontario student data suggest it has become far more common than less than a decade ago. CAMH’s 2025 findings show that 10.0% of students in grades 7 through 12 reported online sports gambling at least once in the previous year, compared with 1.2% in 2017. That shift puts a new focus on how betting has entered the everyday media environment around young people.

The change is occurring alongside widespread exposure to gambling advertising, a legal market that expanded after 2021, and clear differences by age and sex. The numbers do not prove that one policy change, advertisement, or platform caused the increase. They do, however, show that online sports betting is no longer a marginal behaviour among Ontario students and that prevention, access controls, and advertising rules face a much larger test.

A Tenfold Jump in Online Sports Betting

The headline comparison is striking, but the definition matters. In 2025, 10.0% of Ontario students in grades 7 to 12 said they had taken part in online sports gambling at least once during the previous 12 months. In 2017, the comparable figure was 1.2%, or roughly one student in 100. CAMH also recorded 1.4% in 2019, making the 2025 level a sharp break from the earlier pattern.

CAMH describes the 2025 category as online sports gambling, including activities such as online sports lotteries, online sports pools, and online fantasy sports. That distinction matters because it is not a measure of every sports wager students may make. The report says the 2025 rate was significantly higher than those recorded in 2017 and 2019. The question was not asked in 2021 or 2023, so the data alone cannot pinpoint exactly when the steepest increase occurred during that six-year span.

Boys and Older Students Stand Out

The rise is not evenly distributed across Ontario classrooms. CAMH found that 14.9% of male students reported online sports gambling in the previous year, compared with 4.7% of female students, a difference of more than threefold. Age matters too: the share rose from 6.7% among Grade 7 students to 13.0% among Grade 12 students, with the report identifying a significant increase across grades.

Those percentages make the trend easier to picture in ordinary school life. In a group of 30 older students, a 13% rate would equal roughly four students if that group happened to mirror the provincial average. That is an illustration, not a prediction for any classroom. CAMH found no statistically significant regional variation in online sports gambling, suggesting the behaviour was not confined to one part of Ontario. The stronger dividing lines were sex and grade level rather than geography across the province.

Sports Betting Is Part of a Broader Online Shift

Sports betting sits inside a broader move toward gambling online. CAMH found that 11.6% of students reported any online gambling in 2025, up from 7.9% in 2023. Male students again reported a higher rate, at 16.6%, compared with 6.0% among female students. It also found that 6.6% had used other forms of online gambling, including poker, slots, or casino-style activities.

Looking beyond the internet, 19.9% of students reported at least one form of gambling during the previous year. The figure was 24.9% for males and 14.4% for females, with higher rates in senior grades. This matters because sports betting is not developing in isolation. A student who encounters sports wagers may also see lottery products, casino-style games, or other betting formats. CAMH’s figures point to a youth gambling environment spanning multiple products, even though sports betting shows the most dramatic long-term change.

Gambling Ads Are Reaching Most Students

Advertising is one of the clearest features of that environment. In 2025, 80.3% of Ontario students said they had seen or heard advertisements for online gambling on television, radio, or the internet during the previous month. Nearly one-quarter, 23.4%, reported such exposure every day. The daily rate was 30.9% among male students and 15.2% among female students.

Exposure also rose with grade level. CAMH found that 15.6% of Grade 7 students reported daily exposure, compared with 31.3% of Grade 12 students. The report found no significant regional difference, suggesting gambling promotion is a province-wide media presence rather than a localized phenomenon. These figures do not establish that advertising caused any individual student to bet. They do show, however, that most students encounter gambling marketing before they are legally old enough to use Ontario’s regulated iGaming sites, with frequent exposure especially common among older teens.

The Market Changed Between 2017 and 2025

The legal landscape changed substantially between the early CAMH measurements and the 2025 results. Federal amendments permitting provinces and territories to conduct and manage single-event sports betting took effect on August 27, 2021. Ontario then launched its regulated open internet-gaming market on April 4, 2022, allowing registered private operators to offer online casino games and sports betting under provincial oversight.

That timeline gives useful context, but it should not be treated as proof of cause and effect. CAMH did not ask the online sports-gambling question in 2021 or 2023, leaving a gap between the 1.4% result in 2019 and the 10.0% result in 2025. Other factors changed during those years, including betting-app availability, sports-gambling promotion, and the broader shift toward digital entertainment. The evidence establishes that student participation rose sharply during a period of major market change; it does not isolate one factor as the sole underlying reason.

Age Restrictions and Real-World Access Do Not Fully Match

Ontario’s regulated online gambling market is for adults, not school-age customers. iGaming Ontario states that players must be at least 19 years old to use the internet-gaming products it conducts and manages. Regulated sites must meet standards including responsible-gambling tools and consumer protections. Yet CAMH found that one in 10 students in grades 7 through 12 reported online sports gambling during the previous year.

The gap between the legal age limit and student behaviour matters, but the CAMH data cannot explain exactly how every bet was placed. The report does not identify whether a student used a regulated operator, an unregulated site, someone else’s account, an informal pool, or another route. The numbers should not be read as evidence that all youth betting occurred directly on Ontario-regulated platforms. What they do show is that age restrictions alone have not prevented a substantial share of students from reporting online sports-gambling activity.

Ontario Tightened Advertising Rules, Yet Exposure Stayed High

Ontario has tightened rules around how internet gambling can be promoted. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario introduced restrictions effective February 28, 2024, prohibiting athletes in iGaming advertising except for responsible-gambling advocacy. The standards also restrict celebrities, role models, social-media influencers, entertainers, and similar figures when they would likely appeal to minors, while continuing to prohibit advertising directed specifically at underage audiences.

CAMH’s 2025 data were collected from December 2024 through June 2025, after those tighter rules were in force. Even so, 80.3% of students reported seeing or hearing online-gambling advertising in the previous month. That does not mean operators necessarily violated the rules: an advertisement aimed at adults can still be seen by a minor watching the same game or using the same platform. The contrast highlights the difficulty of shielding young audiences from a heavily advertised legal product closely tied to mainstream Canadian sports media today.

Why Researchers Watch Advertising So Closely

Researchers watch gambling advertising closely because exposure can be associated with behaviour, not merely brand awareness. A 2025 systematic review in the journal Addiction examined 22 quantitative studies and found that sports-gambling advertising was associated with outcomes including greater gambling frequency, spending, unplanned betting, and intentions to gamble. Some effects appeared stronger among people already at higher risk of gambling harm.

The evidence is important but not absolute. Much of the research involved adults, many studies were observational, and methods varied, limiting claims of direct causation. A separate systematic review focused on adolescents and young people found that gambling-ad exposure was often linked with greater gambling intentions, behaviour, or problems, while noting that longer-term effects remain difficult to establish. For Ontario, that distinction matters: CAMH’s numbers and the research literature support concern about the advertising environment, but neither can show that seeing a particular ad made a particular student bet.

The Concern Extends Beyond Money Lost

Concern around youth gambling extends beyond money won or lost. CAMH’s broader 2025 student data show that 45.9% reported moderate-to-serious psychological distress, including 23.1% in the serious range. Both measures improved from 2023, but distress remained substantial. Those mental-health figures should not be interpreted as consequences of sports betting; the report does not establish that causal relationship.

Academic research shows that problematic gambling among adolescents and young adults can occur alongside other difficulties. A systematic review of 71 studies found consistent concurrent associations between problem gambling and issues such as conduct problems and depressive symptoms, while stressing that the direction of those relationships is harder to establish. CAMH found that 13.7% of students used school-based mental-health support in 2025, while 62.6% knew how to access it. The findings support treating gambling risk as part of broader youth well-being conversations, not only as a financial issue today.

What the CAMH Numbers Can — and Cannot — Tell Ontario

CAMH’s results draw on a large provincial sample. The 2025 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey included 11,108 students in 1,147 classes at 246 schools across 42 school boards. Data were collected anonymously from December 2024 through June 2025, and weighted to represent roughly 954,000 students in publicly funded Ontario schools in grades 7 through 12. The sports-gambling item was answered by 5,540 students.

Like all population research, the figures have boundaries. The study excludes some groups, including private schools, home schooling, certain institutional settings, First Nation communities, military bases, and remote northern areas. Overall completion was 39%, and answers are self-reported. The design is repeated cross-sectional research, not a study tracking the same individuals over time. Those limitations do not erase the tenfold change CAMH recorded, but they argue for careful interpretation: the trend is clear, while its causes and pathways require further study.

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