2 ms·
> In 2024, Ontarians wagered $82.7 billion CAD on these sites through 2.6 million player accounts. Truly astounding numbers. Without a doubt, online gambling i
by geooff_ 10d ago
> In 2024, Ontarians wagered $82.7 billion CAD on these sites through 2.6 million player accounts.
Truly astounding numbers. Without a doubt, online gambling is the most preventable public health crisis of our generation. None of this had any business getting legalized.
- jLaForest 10d agoAn average of $31807 per person...
- petcat 10d agoIt's a long tail. The vast majority make $20 parlay wagers here and there and they're the real cash cow. And then there are the degens that make $2,000, or $5,000 wagers on everything because otherwise "what's the point?". Short of outright banning (which I would favor), we can at least make mobile wagers capped at say $100 and the same account can't wager more that $500 within a 24 hour period. That would allow people to have their fun but seriously limit the blast radius when they inevitably lose big repeatedly.
- fn-mote 10d ago> The vast majority make $20 parlay wagers here and there and they're the real cash cow. You got the meaning of "whale" wrong. The majority of the winnings / losings come from the "long tail" addicts. > And then there are the degens that make $2,000, or $5,000 wagers on everything because [they are addicted] I think my edit more accurately reflects what is going on. You need to put more time into the proposal if you want to make it serious. How long would it take for people to learn they need "alt accounts" to gamble? Suggestions: 1. Ban advertising of gambling. 2. Ban "remote" gambling including phone apps. What would it take to make progress on this in the current regulatory environment? Post a link to someone who has thought about it.
- DANmode 10d ago> Ban "remote" gambling including phone apps. So gambling will be limited to anyone with AnyDesk? > What would it take to make progress on this in the current regulatory environment? Banning cryptocurrency as a concept, banning fantasy sports betting (shown as credits, settled in dollars in person or out-of-band), banning Tor, I could go on. But the real lever would be to make it illegal! Which, it was, in many jurisdictions. Now it’s splashed all over every NFL broadcast, as you alluded to with your advertising portion.
- Zigurd 10d agoThe gross amount doesn't tell you how much money is being lost to gambling. I'm not going to soften that wording, it really is lost, but such a shocking gross amount means the average loss is in the thousands per year. Gambling is also the archetypal whale hunt. Your best customers are harmed most by your product. There's nothing else that delivers that level of harm directly to a device in your pocket.
- dan353hehe 10d agoIt also could be inflated due to winnings being put back into another bet. A single dollar could be accounted for multiple times if used in multiple bets. Not that I am saying that this number is ok, gambling is a net negative on any society.
- binlog 10d agoAverage is meaningless for anything that isn’t a normal distribution. The median spend per account is probably like $100.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 10d ago"The average is meaningless so here is a number I pulled from my ass."
- john_strinlai 10d agowhile the specific illustrative example they gave may be ass-pulled, the point the parent comment is making is valid.
- deleted 10d ago[deleted]
- tonyarkles 10d agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49733104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49733104 Comes out to about $100/month
- throwaway27727 10d agoAlso, spend is different than wager if every wager might return money to be re-wagered.
- deleted 10d ago[deleted]
- quickthrowman 10d agoI’ve traded over a million dollars of equity volume this year but my brokerage account has less than $50,000 in it. You can wager the same dollar more than once.
- DANmode 10d agoSome can.
- RankingMember 10d agoBasically printing money just like tobacco companies used to be (and now are again with smokeless products). I'm not generally in favor of morality police laws, but this is so egregious it's beyond morality to me- it's vulnerable peoples' firmware getting exploited to give predatory actors their money.
- deleted 10d ago[deleted]
- dpkirchner 10d agoThat figure seemed way off to me (gut response) so I did a tiny bit of digging: Ontario claims income (primary household income) for 2024 was $791B. ~10% isn't as shocking as I expected.
- 542458 10d agoReally? That's an incredible number to me. 10% of all household spending goes to gambling?! 31,000 dollars per player *per year*? The mind boggles.
- pennomi 10d agoBy transaction volume yes. Presumably it’s not all spending though, if you regularly win back some of that money. The same dollar is probably wagered multiple times before it is lost.
- 542458 10d agoOntario lotteries pay out about 58 cents per dollar in, so that's still $13,000 annually out-of-pocket for a total spend of $31,000. That's crazy money.
- dmurray 10d agoSportsbooks typically pay back more like 90%, brick and mortar casinos 90%-99% depending on the game. I don't know what Ontario mandates for regulated online casinos, but I'd guess they're at the high end of that and focus on volume, return custom and dark patterns rather than extreme house edge. If it's 98%, the average household loses 0.2% of their income gambling.
- tonyarkles 10d agohttps://igamingontario.ca/en/news/igaming-ontario-posts-steady-growth-market-matures-year-3 https://igamingontario.ca/en/news/igaming-ontario-posts-stea... $3.2B revenue, 2.6M player accounts, ~$1230/yr ~= $100/month
- deleted 10d ago
- wombat-man 10d agoWow, good thing I'm a curmudgeon who only wants to bet at an IRL sportsbook. A place I only get around to visiting every few years. No good can come of me having a gambling app, I already fool around too much with stocks.
- imglorp 10d agoI was just coming to say the prediction markets are probably way, way worse for society; sports or otherwise. For one thing, they'll be around a trillion dollar market in a few years[1]. How is that in any way a good thing? For another, every bettor on a prediction market is incentivized to use insider information at best, or even to influence the outcome at worst. This is a low point of civilization. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/14/prediction-markets-will-grow-to-1-trillion-by-2030-bernstein-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/14/prediction-markets-will-grow...
- liquidise 10d agoImportant context that many of these dollars are counted multiple times. Ex: you bet 100 and win, bringing your holdings to 200. You bet another 100 and lose, back to 100. You’ve gambled $200 but have arrived at the same number you started with. I have friends who gamble in excess of 100k/yr total. In general their net is ± 3k. A lot to spend on a hobby, but the total is often misleading.
- geooff_ 10d agoGood call out. I hadn't considered this. Would be interesting to see net.