A new study examined 952 emergency department visits for gambling disorders made by 757 individuals across Ontario, drawing on hospital data from January 2012 to September 2025, a 14-year stretch that captures the province both before and after it opened the door to private online gambling.
What the study found
The research, conducted by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found emergency department visits for gambling disorders were 99 per cent higher than expected following the relaxation of Ontario's gambling rules. The increase was not spread evenly. Visits among males aged 10 to 29 were 154 per cent higher than expected, while men aged 30 to 44 saw a 116 per cent increase. No significant increase in gambling-related emergency visits was found among females, and nearly three-quarters of all patients in the study were male. Patients ranged in age from 10 to 105 years old.
A province-wide picture, including the capital
More than 80 privately operated legal gaming and betting sites have since been licensed in Ontario.
The toll on patients
The study also found gambling-related emergency visits rarely happen in isolation. More than 70 per cent of the visits involved another mental health condition or heavy substance use, and almost one-third of the visits led to a hospital admission, a sign of how serious these cases can become by the time someone reaches an emergency room.
Ryan Forrest, the study's lead researcher and a public health doctoral student at the University of Toronto, said the numbers likely capture only a fraction of the true impact. Many people experience gambling-related harm without ever ending up in an emergency department, he said.
A broader trend
The findings echo a separate study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which found calls from young men to Ontario's mental health helpline for gambling-related problems increased by more than 300 per cent.
Sources: paNOW (Canadian Press), News-Medical.net, Deseret News, Covers.com
