I remember when online casinos got to me during Covid. I was still young but I had been predisposed to gambling and online gambling for since I was 15. I heard people talk about gambling harm and problem gambling and I sort of understood the risks associated with it. But I never truly comprehended it until I experienced it.
Imagine feeling so much anxiety and shame that you gambled that you want to just somehow shut down your brain. You sleep thinking about your shame and you wake up with anxiety thinking how stupid you were to lose all that money.
And you still go online to bet more.
It’s debilitating and compulsive at the same time. Gambling not only beats you down, it then picks you up, slaps you in the face and makes you gamble again.
And the cycle of shame repeats itself again.
I was lucky to have found someone to support me through my recovery. But I don’t know if it will be the same for so many young people out there who are exposed to gambling advertisements like gambling is just candy waiting for them to take it and enjoy.
A recent study, conducted by researchers from University of Toronto, found a rise in young men contacting ConnexOntario, a government funded mental health and addiction service, for gambling related issues.
The goal of ConnexOntario is to connect people in need with an appropriate mental health, addiction or gambling support service.
According to the research, Ontario’s rollout of government-run online gambling in 2015 and the 2022 expansion to a privatized market (including single-event sports betting) were each followed by substantial increases in gambling-related contacts to ConnexOntario, rising from 13.4 per million (pre-2015) to 26.2 per million after privatization, with the combined policy effect estimated at +20.8 contacts per million by September 2025 (~198% higher than the no-expansion counterfactual). These increases occurred almost entirely among adolescent boys and men aged 15–44, with the sharpest rise in males 15–24 (estimated +144% to +338% depending on the counterfactual scenario).
The study argues that the rise in gambling-related queries wouldn’t have been so much if the government didn’t expand online gambling and open the market to private betting companies. In other words, researchers estimate that a large share of the increase in helpline contacts would likely not have occurred if online gambling platforms like PlayOLG and the later privatized online betting market had never been introduced.
I agree. Because one of the reasons my brain was so addicted to gambling was because it was so easily accessible to me all the time. It was literally on my phone. Yes, I could have self-excluded. And I did it a few times. But then I would find ways around it or just wait it out until the self-exclusion lifted.
Another reason for my addiction was because I was young and I always thought I could beat the system. I felt the ads had a lot to do with it. The ads always make you feel like you can win. And that feeling stays in the back of a young man’s mind. Because we are young, we have hope and we want to win in life.
People Contact Helpline When They Cross the “I can’t handle this” Threshold
I can’t emphasise enough how hard it is for most people to seek out help. Men are programmed biologically and socially to handle their problems on their own. At least, I was. I thought I could do it. And it took a lot of strength to share my shame with someone, even if it was a stranger.
Another part of the struggle is that a lot of people reach out for help, but then quickly find a reason to not follow through with it. They tell themselves things like, “I don’t think this will help me.” or “I don’t think I can do this.” or “What if I continue with this and my family finds out?”
A lot of men prefer to continue to suffer in shame rather than be exposed and show their vulnerable side to the people close to them.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons young men are the prime target for these gambling advertisements.
This hesitation to seek help shows up clearly in research. A global review found that only about 1 in 5 people with problem gambling ever seek help (Bijker et al., 2022 ), and another review reports that only about 1 in 10 people with gambling problems actually enter treatment, often after suffering symptoms for 7–10 years (Quigley, 2022). Even in places where gambling problems increased sharply, like Ontario after online gambling expansion, helpline contacts still averaged only 26.2 per million people per month, showing how rarely people reach out for help (CMAJ study).
The Real Numbers of The Rise of Gambling Addiction In Men
If you turn the Ontario numbers into real people, the scale becomes clearer. After the province opened online gambling to private operators, gambling-related contacts to ConnexOntario averaged 26.2 per million adults per month. In a province the size of Ontario, that translates to roughly 350–450 gambling-related contacts every month, or several thousand a year. And that figure only reflects one provincial helpline—many people seek help through other services, private treatment programs, therapists, support groups like Gamblers Anonymous, or other crisis lines. In other words, ConnexOntario is only capturing a slice of the help-seeking that actually happens.
Now combine that with what research says about how rarely people ask for help in the first place. A global meta-analysis found that only about 1 in 5 people with problem gambling ever seek help, and other research shows only about 1 in 10 enter formal treatment, often after suffering for 7–10 years before reaching out. When you put those numbers together, a rise in helpline contacts likely represents a much larger number of people quietly struggling behind the scenes, many of whom never appear in any official statistics at all.
The Silver Lining
The silver lining in all of this is that young men are reaching out for help more. That makes me feel that the society as a whole is making it more acceptable for young men to seek help. I believe the internet, the responsible gaming initiative, social support forums such as r/Gamblingrecovery and the information available online about gambling addiction helps people reach out more.
One study reports that people with gambling problems suffer from symptoms for 7-10 years before actually entering treatment.
But if men aged 15-24 are reaching out to these helplines and entering treatment after that, then it means they got help much faster than the average (assuming majority of them started gambling at 18).
This could mean two things –
- They are suffering faster and harder. This could be due to the easily available gambling options available to them.
- They are becoming aware of their gambling problem faster. Which means that the information available for gambling disorders is actually working.
The reality is that it’s likely both to some extent.
Whatever it is, I do see some hope for young men out there who may be susceptible to gambling addiction. I am, after all, an optimist.
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