Senate passes National Framework on Advertising for Sports Betting Act
Bill S-269 approved at third reading, sent to House of Commons
Bill S-269, the proposed legislation that would establish a national framework for regulating sports betting adverts across Canada, was adopted in the Senate on Tuesday.
After the Transport and Communications Committee held initial debates in June and six hours of hearings in late September and early October, the committee advanced the National Framework on Advertising for Sports Betting Act to the full Senate for further debate.
Sen. Marty Deacon posited that when approving Bill C-218 in 2021 to expand sports betting and iGaming, lawmakers had not appropriately considered “the flood of advertising that would go along with it,” noting how online gaming and betting in Ontario (and, by extension, its effects on the rest of Canada) had proliferated in the years since.
After three third-reading chamber sittings in the full Senate in recent weeks, Deacon’s Bill S-269 was approved on Nov. 5. It will now head to the House of Commons.
What would Bill S-269 do?
“Let’s start with what this legislation won’t do,” Deacon told the chamber at the first sitting. “It will not ban gambling ads completely… What this bill would do instead is require the Minister of Canadian Heritage to develop a national framework on the advertising of sports betting.”
That would include identifying measures to regulate ads. That includes restricting the number, scope and location of advertising as well as potentially further limiting or banning the use of celebrities and athletes. It would also identify measures to promote research and information-sharing related to the potential and actual effects of advertising on minors and would set out national standards for the prevention and diagnosis of harmful gambling and related support measures.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission would also be required to review its regulations and policies relating to sports betting ads.
“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,” added Deacon.
“It doesn’t address all the problems that we’re facing, but I think it’s a step forward.”
Sen. Leo Housakos
“The bill proposed by Senator Marty Deacon is, I think, a reasonable bill,” said Sen. Leo Housakos, the chair of the Transport Committee, at Tuesday’s final sitting. “It doesn’t address all the problems that we’re facing, but I think it’s a step forward… I think we should go forward with it. I think we should be vigilant and keep our eyes open going forward on what else we need to do as parliamentarians to address the problem.”
Hearings included mental health and gaming experts
At the lengthy committee hearings earlier this fall, senators had heard from a variety of witnesses, ranging from Canadian gaming industry leaders and broadcasters to UK gambling experts and Canadian mental health and youth support groups, and more.
A focus of the first hearing in late September was the potential effect of gambling advertising on minors and other vulnerable demographics, with topics such as the danger of social media and the gamification of non-gambling mobile games discussed.
Another focus was broadcasters’ role. Kevin Desjardins, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), and Responsible Gambling Council (RGC) CEO Shelley White both noted that broadcasters have already begun taking measures to limit the quantity of sports betting ads, and that betting operators are not asking for as much ad time as they were in the earliest days of Ontario’s commercial online gaming market.
That point was echoed at the second hearing a few days later by Canadian Gaming Association President and CEO Paul Burns and ThinkTV CEO Catherine MacLeod. Other topics discussed at that second hearing included cross-border advertising, the effects of streaming, and the need for broader and deeper research.
While these committee hearings were going on, the NFL and the NHL both wrote to lawmakers to advise them against heavy-handed measures and calling for caution in considering national legislation.
House of Commons to evaluate betting ads next
After being approved in the Senate on Tuesday, Bill S-269 will now be discussed in the House of Commons.
When a bill is sent from one chamber to the other, the bill is read again for the first time and goes through the same steps, so it must proceed through first and second readings, then go under consideration in committee, before reaching the report stage and the final third reading. The timeline for Bill S-269 undergoing this process in the House is unclear.
If the House were to make any amendments, the bill would be sent back to the Senate for further review. If a final version of the bill gets approval from both chambers, it would be sent for royal assent.