“Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”
“I’d walk a mile for a Camel.”
“Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch.”
Readers of a certain age will surely remember the tag lines from television commercials we used to watch decades ago. R.J. Reynolds even boasted that “More doctors smoke Camels” than any other brand.
Today we can scarcely believe that such ads were ever allowed. They’re not anymore, of course. Parliament passed its first law banning tobacco advertising nearly 40 years ago.
Now some people are drawing comparisons to online sports gambling — and demanding the same ad-free solution.
Bruce Kidd may be 82 years old, but don’t let that fool you. The former Canadian Olympic long-distance runner and head of the University of Toronto’s athletics department still burns with moral indignation when talking about the corrosive influence online gambling (and particularly “prop” betting) has had on sports.
That’s why he, along with a longtime associate, lawyer Robin Campbell, has created a not-for-profit in Ontario called Ban Ads for Gambling. And with the Winter Olympics coming up, Kidd and Campbell have written to the International Olympic Committee, hoping to enlist its support in dialing down the ocean of online bets that will otherwise be placed on Olympic events.
Ever since Arnold Rothstein bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the 1919 World Series, officials have been on the lookout for the potentially-toxic mix of gambling and sports.
But today’s landscape is more complicated. Prop bets — where people gamble on propositions such as whether the first pitch of a game will be a strike — mean players don’t have to lose intentionally to make a buck. Two big-league pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians were indicted 15 months ago, accused of taking bribes to rig certain pitches. Individual pitches. Not even throw the game.
One of the pitchers, Emmanuel Clase, makes $6 million a year yet is accused of throwing pitches at the request of gamblers to win a few hundred thousand dollars more. (Both pitchers have pleaded not guilty to bribery.)
Bruce Kidd and Robin Campbell are prepared for a long fight. (Steve Paikin)
Kidd recalls a Toronto Raptors game a few years ago where a prop bet required then-Raptor Chris Boucher to get 10 points in the game. In the dying seconds, Boucher had a chance to score his tenth point with a three-point shot. Instead, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a teammate with a better chance to win the game. He passed to that teammate, who sank the winning basket. Great finish, right?
Not for Boucher. After the game, he was mercilessly attacked online because he didn’t hit the 10-point target.
“I picked the wrong slave today,” someone said of Boucher, who is St. Lucian-born, Canadian-raised, and Black.
“So, he did a good thing from a sporting and team perspective,” Kidd says. “But he was abused with the worst racist language by disappointed bettors.”
Kidd and Campbell understand that the toothpaste is out of the tube when it comes to online gambling. They’re not going to be able to ban it. But they can try to ban the ads. “We're advocating for a ban on all gambling advertising in the way that it's banned for tobacco and cannabis,” says Campbell. “Not just keep the athletes out of it — but ban it altogether.”
Ontario outlawed the use of professional athletes in endorsing various online gambling services. But those services have figured out a way around the prohibition. Instead, they enlist pro stars in ad campaigns that urge gamblers to behave responsibly.
“When you have a sports hero, standing up, talking about responsible gambling, the message to the kids is: gamble,” says Kidd.
Kidd and Campbell both have busy professional lives, but couldn’t avoid launching this campaign. “We were so grossed out by the ads and the poisoning effect on sport,” Kidd says, “and the way it has led to all this abuse of athletes like Chris Boucher. The way that it's led to cheating. The way it's led to the manipulation of games. It is disgusting.”
The traditional argument for allowing the proliferation of prop betting (which became legal in this province earlier this decade) is that sports betting will happen regardless, so it may as well happen in an open and regulated environment. Besides, the Ontario treasury needs the money. According to Gaming News Canada, total gross revenue from online gambling surpassed $4 billion in 2025 — that’s up 34 per cent from the year before. But Kidd is convinced the costs associated with gambling make those buoyant revenues a pyrrhic victory.
“How about what treatment and counselling cost, and economic losses as people gamble away their investment money, their pension money, and so on,” he says. “Kids in university are gambling away their scholarship money. There are just too many heart-wrenching, moving stories.”
Ban Ads for Gambling is scouring the world for like-minded groups. There are plenty. In Canada, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the Canadian Paediatric Society have all raised the alarm. That last group is warning that kids as young as eight or nine are already hooked on making prop bets from their phones, because they love the dopamine rush.
The body charged with overseeing online gambling is called iGaming Ontario. It reports to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. iGaming’s website is replete with information about how much revenue gambling brings in, leadership personnel changes, jobs that gaming creates, and, yes, some guidance on how to gamble safely.
Kidd and Campbell surely know they are spitting into a hurricane, as so many societal forces are encouraging gambling. Look no further than the Super Bowl this weekend, during which American sportsbooks are expected to process nearly $2 billion USD in bets — much of it on things as quirky (ridiculous?) as: Will the Star Spangled Banner take less than two minutes to sing? Who will win the coin toss? Which team will kick the first field goal? And who will score the first touchdown?
But don’t expect them to quit their quest. It took decades to ban tobacco ads. In the end, public health won. Kidd and Campbell plan to repeat history, no matter how long it takes.