It’s a bet for your health.
A popular online pastime is proving to be a bad bet for some gamers, with new research linking its rise to an increase in emergency room visits — and one demographic being particularly affected.
The results, from Canada, could be a wake-up call for the United States, where activity has taken off in recent years.
In the study, researchers from the University of Toronto and other institutions focused on single-event online sports betting.
Ontario legalized private betting platforms in April 2022, becoming the first province to allow them.
This decision turned out to be a cash cow. In 2024 alone, Ontarians wagered $82.7 billion across 2.6 million player accounts.
To assess the consequences, researchers analyzed emergency room visits for gaming disorders among Ontarians aged 10 to 105 over 14 years, before and after the rule changes.
A total of 757 people made 952 emergency room visits during this period in which a gaming disorder was listed as a primary or contributing reason for the trip.
After Canada legalized single-event sports betting and Ontario expanded its gambling market, gambling-related emergency room visits doubled.
But the impact has not been evenly distributed. Visits were 154% higher than expected among men aged 10 to 29 and 116% higher among men aged 30 to 44.
Notably, there was no change among women.
Many patients arrived at the emergency room with major depression or suicidal thoughts, while others had mental health or substance abuse diagnoses.
Nearly a third of emergency room visits resulted in hospitalization.
“Most people with gambling problems will never seek treatment. We are therefore concerned that the increase in emergency room visits for gambling disorders may reveal a much larger increase in gambling-related harms,” said Dr. Daniel Myran, lead author of the study and associate professor of family and community medicine, in a press release.
The findings come as online sports betting has become increasingly integrated into American life since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law banning most state-sanctioned sports gambling.
Today, 27% of American adults – including half of men aged 18 to 49 – report having an active account at an online sports betting site such as DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel or BetMGM, according to an April 2026 study.
This is an increase from 22% of Americans in 2025 and 19% in 2024.
Most bettors say they do it because it’s fun and exciting, it makes them more interested in watching games live, or because they think they can make money betting.
But the same survey highlights some troubling trends.
Negative gaming outcomes have increased in several areas, according to the Siena Research Institute and the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University.
This year, 42% of sports bettors said they felt they bet more than they should, up from 37% last year. And 43% said they felt bad or ashamed after losing a bet, compared to 37% in 2025.
Fifteen percent of punters reported calling a helpline or seeking other help, up from 9% in 2025 and 2024.
Meanwhile, 22% of respondents said they know someone who has or had a problem with online sports betting, compared to 16% in 2025 and 15% in 2024.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision, states must set their own rules for online sports betting.
Currently, 32 states and D.C. have legal sports betting programs through smartphone apps or websites, according to CBS Sports. New York is one of them – and it’s a particularly important player.
In September, a report found that sports betting had become the second-largest source of revenue for the Empire State’s gaming industry, behind the lottery, bringing in more than $1 billion a year in taxes.
The increase in gaming revenue in recent years is largely attributable to the rise of mobile sports betting, while other forms of gambling have declined or remained stable, according to an analysis from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office.
And as concerns about gambling addiction have spread across the country, particularly among young men, New York has been no exception.
As online gambling has increased, calls to the state’s problem gambling hotline jumped 8.5% between 2020 and 2025, reaching 2,545 last year.
In neighboring New Jersey, where online sports betting is also legal, nearly one in five adults ages 18 to 24 are at high risk for problem gambling — and a third of that group gambles exclusively online, Rutgers University researchers found.
This rate is five times higher than in a 2017 report from the school and higher than that of any other age group.
Younger men ages 18 to 44 were also “most likely to be high-risk problem gamblers,” according to the report, which found 19 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were at high risk.
The latest research shows similar consequences in Canada since single-event sports betting became legal.
“The concentration of the increase among young men is particularly concerning given the rapid growth and promotion of online sports betting, which targets this demographic,” said Ryan Forrest, first author of the study from the University of Toronto and a doctoral student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
“The consequences of increased gambling extend not just to individual players, but also to wider effects on families and communities. »
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