FanDuel calls it “Thrillberta.”
Register with a $5 bet and be eligible for $200 in “bonus bets.”
DraftKings has an Alberta licence plate touting the province as its next stop. An ad from another provider invoked an image of the scenic Rocky Mountains.
Sports betting and online casinos run by private, commercial operators are now legal in Alberta, and it’s come with plenty of advertising. Albertans can place sports bets and play casino games on dozens of websites, many of which are among the most prominent in the gambling industry. Alberta is following Ontario, which opened its market in 2022.
Throughout the lead-up to the market launch, Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally has emphasized responsible gaming and the guidelines operators will have to abide by.
Under the rules, operators cannot use celebrities to promote gaming itself — they can only endorse responsible gaming. Unlike Ontario, Alberta has introduced universal self-exclusion right from launch, and someone who deems themselves to be a problem gambler can sign up and effectively bar themselves from online and in-person gambling for up to three years.
“We want to put player safety and player responsibility first,” Nally said this week.
“For all of those individuals that are struggling, treatment will be free of charge and it will be paid for by the operators.”
Experts concerned
Still, some feel more can be done to protect people vulnerable to gambling addictions.
Joel Mader is a registered psychologist in Calgary and works with clients experiencing gambling addictions. While this portion of his clientele is mostly men, he said others are impacted as well.
“This is a problem that affects women as well,” he said. “I have worked with grandmothers, grandfathers, parents, and emerging adults. Their reasons for gambling may vary, but the cycle tends to be the same.”
This cycle is often characterized by a person experiencing larger losses, becoming more isolated and more desperate for a win that can help them to break even, Mader said.
“As they incur more losses, these people get behind on their debts and lie to family members and spouses out of shame. Eventually the person cannot maintain the juggling act, and the balls drop,” he said.
“In these cases, it can result in insolvency, marriages ending, and persons losing their houses. In the most severe situations, this may result in a person dying by suicide as they may see no way out of the situation.”
He feels that the province has to ensure it is fully controlling and enforcing the responsible gaming initiatives, instead of letting operators police themselves.
“There’s a lot of cases where I’ve worked with, where someone’s self-excluded themselves from a casino only to go back the next day and be able to bet and not be identified,” he said.
“There’s not a lot of gambling-specific treatment services available, I think in part because so few folks who struggle with this issue actually seek help.”
Operators emphasizing safety, community involvement
Gaming companies have stated their commitment to responsible use. Cory Fox, FanDuel’s senior vice-president of public policy, walked CBC News through some of their features last week.
“Deposit limits, wager limits, time limits, something called a time out if you want to take just a little bit of time off,” he said.
The app has a built-in spending tracker that shows statistics about the user’s betting history.
“We know that some users may intentionally forget about some losses … we really want to make sure that folks are taking a sober look at exactly what they did on the platform over the past month.”
Jennifer Aguiar, DraftKings’ chief compliance and risk officer, spoke with CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener earlier this week, noting that there will be “quite a bit” of advertising upcoming in Alberta.
LISTEN | Sports gambling with private operators is now legal in Alberta:
Calgary Eyeopener7:24The province has opened the door to private online gambling operators—what does this mean for Albertans?
As of today, Albertans can now legally bet on sports using private operators. To learn more about what this means for users, we spoke to Jennifer Aguiar, DraftKings’ Chief Compliance and Risk Officer.
“We make tools available to customers to foster a responsible engagement environment,” she said of DraftKings’ responsible gaming features. “Deposit, wager, loss, and time limits, self-exclusion options, cooling off options.”
Aguiar also said the company would have involvement with the Calgary Food Bank as part of the market launch.
“We’re going to be stocking, sorting, preparing food donations for the local food banks across the province,” she said.
Gambling unique compared to other addictions
Part of the challenge is that gambling is a different sort of addiction compared to alcohol or drugs. While the human body gives indicators it cannot handle more alcohol or drugs, that same dynamic doesn’t exist with gambling.
“You can’t lose a quarter of a million dollars on alcohol in one night,” Mader said.
“There’s going to be a limit to what your body can tolerate and take. Whereas with something like gambling, the fact is that that ceiling isn’t really necessarily capped by a physical limitation. Folks can experience incredible amounts of losses in a very short amount of time.”
He also feels gambling is more challenging for others to clue in on.
“You can gamble in relative secrecy,” he said.
“There’s, again, no physical signs that you’re going to be able to pick up on. Whereas when someone is actively addicted to substances, family members, friends, employers, people are going to pick up on this.”
That’s what makes gambling so dangerous, in Mader’s view.
“Someone can dig themselves so far into a hole before anyone is aware of it. This is where we start to see, in some cases, things like greater risks for suicide as being really relevant to this population.”
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A big shift for online gambling in Alberta
Alberta is set to become the second province to introduce a fully-regulated market for private online gambling companies. CBC’s Tristan Mottershead has more.
