The government agency responsible for online gambling in Ontario secretly shelved a research study intended to track rates of problem gambling in the province.
iGaming Ontario commissioned the study in the months before the province launched its regulated online market for sports betting and casino games in April 2022. The agency had vowed to make the research public, saying it would establish a baseline for problem gambling in Ontario while informing how they tailored their responsible gambling program.
However, records obtained by the Star through freedom of information legislation reveal that iGaming executives were concerned when researchers reported problem gambling rates significantly higher than expected, and quietly decided the research would be kept confidential.
The internal records show the agency was worried the findings would still be leaked, and brainstormed damage control at a meeting where they discussed a “gag order” and other strategies to minimize the chances the researchers may “bad mouth” iGaming Ontario.
iGaming Ontario declined to make any representative available for an interview and did not answer a detailed list of questions for this story.
In an unsigned statement, the agency said Ontario’s online gambling market “has some of the strictest standards in the country, and we continue to work with our partners to strengthen responsible gaming and protect players across the province.”
The records obtained by the Star — released after protracted delays and a successful appeal to the Information and Privacy Commissioner — are heavily censored and the researchers’ findings were withheld entirely. Among the grounds relied upon by iGaming Ontario to justify the lack of disclosure is that releasing the records could harm the province’s economic interests. (The Star has also appealed that decision to the Information and Privacy Commissioner to try to force iGaming Ontario to release more of the records.)
Online gambling has been incredibly lucrative for the province. Ontarians wagered more than $82.7 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year with nearly $3 billion of that added to provincial coffers, according to the agency’s most recent annual report.
Preliminary data for the 2025-26 fiscal year and the first quarter of 2026-27 show more than a 25-per-cent increase on those totals.
That windfall has come at a cost, critics say. Suicides by people with gambling issues have increased, according to data from Ontario’s chief coroner. Emergency department visits for gambling disorders have doubled. Insolvencies in which gambling is identified as one of the causes have more than tripled. Calls to Ontario’s problem gambling help line have also shot up.
Despite the signals of increased gambling harms, the province has not conducted any kind of public study of how legalizing online gambling — and the advertising onslaught that came with it — affected rates of problem gambling in the population.
The research iGaming Ontario commissioned — and then hid — was meant to fill in some of those gaps.
Province planned to release study
In the months before Ontario launched its online gambling marketplace, iGaming Ontario put out a request for bids to conduct a two-year research study “to gain an understanding of the prevalence of problem gambling in Ontario.”
The Responsible Gambling Council, a charity that aims to prevent problem gambling, was the successful bidder. The RGC also runs the province’s responsible gambling accreditation program required for all gambling operators.
iGaming Ontario pointed to the RGC-led research study in both internal and external presentations as one of the key actions it was taking to promote responsible gambling.
It was a longitudinal study, meaning researchers would follow the same group of people over a two-year period, and it was to include three waves of data collection. iGaming Ontario was clear about its intention to publicize the findings.
The province announced on Aug. 1 that it has selected a vendor to build a centralized self-exclusion system.
The province announced on Aug. 1 that it has selected a vendor to build a centralized self-exclusion system.
“Through this study … we can both establish a baseline for gambling participation and problem gambling in the province and see how our responsible gambling program can be modified according to player needs. We look forward to receiving the final study results and sharing them with the public,” iGaming Ontario communications adviser Josh Elliott previously told the Star in 2024.
Given the extent to which the records are redacted it’s not entirely clear why iGaming Ontario’s executives changed their mind about making the results public.
The records suggest that, from the start, they were uncomfortable with what researchers found.
Methodology at heart of disagreement
The first wave of data collection took place in February 2022, two months before Ontario launched its online gaming market. It was to establish a baseline for the rates of problem gambling in the province.
“Baseline came back with unexpected PG [problem gambling] rates that deviate significantly from other research,” reads a sentence in undated meeting notes.
The meeting notes and other records disclosed to the Star suggest the researchers’ use of online survey panels was a point of contention.
Online panels are considered a legitimate survey method, but they have been found to produce higher rates of problem gambling than other methods, likely because participants in online surveys typically spend more time online than the average person.
“To address this we want to add a telephone sample to Wave 2,” the unsigned notes read, noting that iGaming Ontario’s then executive director, Martha Otton, was “in agreement with this approach.
“She was very concerned about this results [sic] and not confident in the research. Wants to have the telephone sample to demonstrate rates are influenced by the methodology.”
Otton, who retired in February, did not respond to questions sent to her LinkedIn account.
Gambling researchers regularly use online panels, despite their limitations, because the alternatives are often prohibitively expensive. A recent national study of problem gambling among young adults used online panels and included a note acknowledging their association with higher rates of problem gambling.
In a December 2022 email, iGaming Ontario senior manager for responsible gambling, Melissa Ball, wrote to a colleague who had requested the data from the study’s first wave.
“You may be aware that there has been a lot of internal discussion on the results of the baseline study so please do not share these results widely.”
Officials discussed ‘gag order,’ documents show
After securing the bid to conduct the study, the Responsible Gambling Council enlisted two Ontario researchers to assist them: Iris Balodis and Michael Wohl from McMaster and Carleton universities, respectively.
Balodis and Wohl are part of the Ontario Gambling Research Society (OGRS), a small group of academics at the forefront of gambling research in the province.
The records obtained by the Star do not include any emails or other documents written by Balodis or Wohl themselves. But the documents that refer to their involvement suggest they were not on board with changing the methodology midway through the study.
Balodis and Wohl both declined to be interviewed for this story. In a joint statement in response to questions, they said they were not paid to conduct the research.
They said it was their understanding that they were brought in to collaborate on the work given their “dedication” to supporting independent gambling research and using the “best standards and codes of ethics.”
“Our participation was based on the explicit condition that we publish the findings of the study,” the statement reads, adding that they had received ethics clearance from Carleton University’s Research Ethics Board.
Balodis and Wohl said that after the first wave of data collection “views on the best path forward differed,” and they “parted ways” with RGC and iGaming Ontario.
In a February 2023 email between iGaming Ontario’s Melissa Ball and a researcher at the Responsible Gambling Council, Ball writes that she is getting legal advice “on how we should approach the issue of OGRS” — meaning Balodis and Wohl — “potentially having copies of the data.”
By March 2023 the conflict with the researchers seems to have reached a tipping point, according to notes written by someone from iGaming Ontario in a meeting with a Responsible Gambling Council executive.
The notes say Balodis “acknowledged receipt” of a letter and was “reviewing the request,” but Wohl had not responded to multiple emails and a voicemail.
The notes say the letter sent to Balodis and Wohl may have “fuelled their narrative, that iGO is trying to keep us quiet.”
At some point in 2023, the records show, iGaming Ontario hired a public relations firm — Counsel Public Affairs — for “strategic planning and reactive messaging support” related to the problem gambling research study.
“We have updated the methodology for the 2nd and 3rd wave, it is very sticky and will be a tough topic,” reads one of the few unredacted bullet points in a September 2023 document titled “Counsel Meeting Notes.”
In another meeting around the same time, iGaming Ontario staff apparently discussed the possibility of Balodis and Wohl publicly criticizing the project.
“The risk is OGRS disavow the research,” reads the document, which is also labelled “Meeting Notes.” It’s not clear who wrote the notes.
“What are the researchers going to say when it comes out? Do we need to acknowledge OGRS’ involvement in the project? Is there a gag-order? … If we give them the data, maybe they won’t bad mouth.”
Even as recently as March 2025, iGaming Ontario appeared to be concerned the academics — or someone else — might leak the data.
Balodis and Wohl do not appear to have ever leaked the data. They did co-author an article in The Conversation, a news website where academics write about their research.
In the piece, Balodis, Wohl and their co-authors lament how online gambling’s “massive industry growth and revenue,” hasn’t translated to reliable data on the extent of problem gambling in Ontario.
“As researchers working in the field of gambling studies, we feel a duty to highlight these risks, but are increasingly concerned about the lack of an independent research body in Ontario to monitor the situation.”
The Responsible Gambling Council’s former CEO Shelley White, who left the organization last year and is now a board member for iGaming Ontario, declined to answer questions for this story. The organization’s current CEO, Sarah McCarthy, also declined to be interviewed.
In an unsigned written statement, the Responsible Gambling Council said that under the terms of their contract with iGaming Ontario all of the study’s findings are owned by the government agency “and the decision on how and when to publish results rests with them.”
In its statement to the Star, iGaming Ontario said as a result of concerns about the study’s methodology, “the study did not meet the standard required to inform policy development.”
Neither iGaming Ontario nor the Responsible Gambling Council would say how much taxpayer money was used to pay for the research.
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‘Upcoming election’ weighed on study decision
Despite the dispute over the methodology, the study continued right up until a final draft was delivered to iGaming Ontario in August 2024.
Meeting notes state that iGaming Ontario provided feedback to the Responsible Gambling Council on the final draft.
“However, despite meeting and providing feedback multiple times, the feedback was never fully incorporated,” the notes, dated January 2025, read. “In September it was decided that we would hold off on doing any more work related to the report, nor was there an appetite to invest any more money to improve it, and that we wouldn’t be releasing it.”
iGaming Ontario would not say who wrote the notes, which are mostly redacted.
One bullet point reads: “Upcoming election considerations.” All of the content in the section is redacted.
The Ford government was elected to its third consecutive majority the following month.