A top Canadian mental health hospital executive has added his voice to calls for tighter restrictions on online sports gambling ads in the country.
Bill Marra, the Chief Executive of Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare in Windsor, Ontario, has written an open letter warning that the rapid expansion of online betting is having devastating consequences. Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is home to a specialized program for problem gambling.
Marra said that attendance in the hospital’s gambling treatment program has doubled over the last five years, a trend he links directly to aggressive marketing.
“It is very difficult for anyone that’s monitoring a sporting event, reading something online or watching it live to not be exposed to online gambling enticements,” he said.
