Sports Betting Ad Bill Caught Up In Canada’s Legislative Gridlock

A bill that would create national guidelines for sports betting advertising in Canada is in legislative limbo. 

Bill S-269 cleared the appointed Senate earlier this month but has yet to receive its first reading in the elected House of Commons, which would get the ball rolling on potential passage in the latter chamber. 

When that will happen, or when the bill will make any substantial progress at all, is unclear, due in large part to the current standoff in the House. There, lawmakers have been in a battle over documents tied to a since-shuttered “green fund” that shows no signs of stopping. 

The governing Liberals lack a majority in the House, preventing them from singlehandedly ending the impasse. The Conservative opposition, meanwhile, is set on continuing the debate. 

Game on

Given that both sides see themselves in the right, the gridlock may not be broken anytime soon. And, until then, S-269’s odds of passing are long and getting longer. 

Gambling-related bills are arguably a lower priority for lawmakers even on quiet days in a legislature, which may be few and far between in the House whenever the legislative logjam is broken.

“We know that many Canadians are concerned about the financial, mental health and addiction impacts of online gambling advertising, especially on young people,” a spokesperson for Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s office told Covers on Tuesday. “We are aware of Senator [Marty] Deacon’s Bill, which seeks to set a national standard for these ads, similar to regulations regulating tobacco and alcohol ads. We followed the Senate debate closely and are looking forward to examining it when it is introduced in the House. We are committed to getting things done for Canadians in Parliament and we believe the Conservatives should stop playing obstructionist partisan games so that MPs can debate bills – including Bill S-269.’’

Of course, in the Conservatives’ telling, it’s the Liberals playing games.

Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer told reporters on Tuesday that the Liberals decided “to keep Parliament paralyzed rather than hand over documents.”

Sober second thoughts, delayed

So the gridlock continues for all bills, not just S-269. 

However, S-269 passed the Senate relatively smoothly (albeit after plenty of study by lawmakers). That was partly due to the recent changes in law and regulation for Canadian sports betting and internet casino gambling that have made advertising for those products hard to miss during major sporting events.

The two changes that have had the farthest-reaching consequences were the decriminalization of single-game wagering by federal lawmakers in 2021 and Ontario’s launch of a competitive iGaming market in 2022. 

Those changes brought with them advertising by companies that are now regulated in Ontario and seeking to attract customers. Some of those ads receive national airtime and notice, despite the fact that the operators behind the marketing are only regulated in Ontario.

This has grated on casual observers and sports fans and prompted some lawmakers to act. 

“We supported, by numbers, a single sport-betting bill,” said Ontario Sen. Marty Deacon, S-269’s sponsor, during debate on the legislation in October. “There was a problem with negative implications. We need to fix it quickly. Please help me get this one step closer and back to the other place [the House] so we can get this right, and soon.”

S-269 would require St-Onge (or whoever the heritage minister is if and when it passes) to develop a national framework for sports betting advertising in Canada that could suggest ways to restrict the number, location, and format of those ads. 

What exactly the framework will look like will be determined through conversations with other federal ministers, as well as provincial lawmakers, gaming regulators, and Indigenous communities.

“I can’t say for sure what this framework will look like if it passes, but with the case history we see, I trust we will see more reasonable limits placed on these ads, informed by existing research and best practices,” Deacon said. “After all, Canadians are begging for this, so the political will is there, at all levels of government, to get it right.”

The NFL is warning Canadian lawmakers about “unreasonably curtailing responsible advertising” for sports betting in connection with a bill in the Senate that may further restrict such marketing.

Ad limits could hurt efforts to move illegal activity into legal markets, NFL says. pic.twitter.com/OdQBMQcUS4

— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) October 3, 2024

But not everyone is “begging” for the legislation, which has faced pushback from the gaming industry, the NFL, and the NHL.

Senators heard testimony suggesting demand for ad time from sports betting companies is waning.

Moreover, there is regulation and self-regulation afoot. Ontario’s iGaming regulator, for instance, has made changes to advertising rules already, such as restricting the use of athletes and celebrities. 

“Unreasonably curtailing responsible advertising will inevitably hamper the important effort to channelize illegal sports betting into the legal market,” warned Jonathan Nabavi, the NFL’s vice president of public policy and government affairs, in a letter to a Senate committee.

Nevertheless, the debate over S-269 could be moot if the bill can’t go anywhere in the House. There, it needs to more or less repeat the process it went through in the Senate. Any change to the bill by the House would need to be approved by the Senate as well before it can become law.

There is not an unlimited amount of time for S-269 to pass either. The next fixed date for a federal election is Oct. 20, 2025, and Canadians could go to the polls even before then if Parliament is dissolved. 

The Liberals also lack a voting majority in the House of Commons, which keeps an earlier election a possibility. 

However, polling suggests the Conservatives have a healthy lead over the Liberals, which could keep the status quo intact for a while longer. At bet365, the Conservatives were -900 favorites to win the next federal election as of Tuesday evening, while the Liberals were +500 underdogs.

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