The law protects them. It can’t teach them.
No one under 18 may gamble in Alberta, and Alberta’s standards keep high-school and youth club games off regulated betting sites. That is good news. But betting still reaches young athletes as fans, followers and teammates, and the integrity rules they will live under arrive the day they turn 18. We found no current, funded, province-wide program in Alberta schools that talks to them about it.
Sources: Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC); School Sport Alberta (formerly the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association), published figures; Smith et al., University of Lethbridge / University of Calgary, preliminary findings presented at the Alberta Gambling Research Institute conference, April–May 2026 (20 post-secondary student-athletes). Responsible Gambling Council, reported pilot results for Beyond the Game (RGC’s own figures). Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey 2025 (Ontario figures; the 2025 online sports-betting question is broader than in earlier years and includes online sports lotteries, pools and fantasy sports). McCreary Centre Society, BC Adolescent Health Survey 2023 (B.C. figures, n=38,277). Alberta Gambling Research Institute, research plan 2025. The Ontario and B.C. figures are context, not Alberta data. Organizations are named for context only; none has reviewed or endorsed AWARE. Page last reviewed October 2026.
Betting reaches them as fans, followers and teammates
Under-18 athletes are sports fans too. They watch games, follow players and creators online, and talk about results in group chats and team rooms.
Betting can reach them through ads and sponsored content, influencers and social media, pools and group chats, older teammates who can bet legally, and loot boxes and “free” games that feel like betting.
Ontario, where a private online gambling market opened in April 2022, measures this in its student survey. Nearly 1 in 4 Ontario students in grades 7–12 (23.4%) see or hear online-gambling ads every day, rising to about 31% of boys and of Grade 12 students. About 1 in 8 Ontario students in grades 7–12 (11.6%) gambled online in the past year, up from 7.9% in 2023; among girls it doubled, from 3.0% to 6.0% (CAMH, Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey 2025).
Some young athletes already bet. B.C. youth aged 12–18 who played organized sport with a coach at least weekly were twice as likely to have bet on sports for money in the past year (10% vs 5%); the researchers say this suggests there may be a role for coaches in talking to young people about gambling (McCreary Centre Society, BC Adolescent Health Survey 2023).
Most young athletes are not betting. But they are likely to meet betting well before 18, and they should know what they are looking at.
The law, and the reality
The law is clear. No one under 18 may gamble in Alberta, online or in person. Unregulated and offshore sites are not legal or safe options.
Alberta’s standards also protect youth sport itself. Regulated sites may offer bets only where “the majority of participants in the event or league are 18 years of age or older”, and “bets on minor league sports in Canada, including the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), are prohibited” (AGLC SRIG s. 4.6.5). High-school games, U18 club games and the WHL are not on Alberta’s regulated betting sites. Outdoor ads may not appear directly next to schools or other primarily youth-oriented locations, or in media and venues directed primarily to minors (SRIG s. 4.1).
That is reassuring, and it is accurate. But the rules govern the market, not the group chat. And rules like these are not always followed. In June 2023, Ontario’s regulator fined two operators $15,000 each for offering bets on OHL, WHL and QMJHL games.
As they move up
Youth sport is a starting point. Some of today’s under-18 athletes will go on to provincial, junior, university or pro sport, where most competitors are adults and games can be offered for betting.
This winter, the 2027 IIHF World Junior Championship comes to Edmonton and Red Deer (26 December 2026 – 5 January 2027): teenage athletes on the world stage, in Alberta. It is a reminder of how quickly a young athlete’s world can get bigger.
At higher levels, some athletes are targeted by people who bet. In the United States, NCAA research published in November 2025 found that 36% of Division I men’s basketball athletes reported betting-related abuse on social media in a single year. That is US data about older athletes. We use it as context for where some young athletes are headed, not as a picture of Alberta youth sport.
How to document, report and lock accounts down is easier to learn early, in a calm room, than after a loss.
The rules they’ll live under at 18, and inside information now
The day an athlete turns 18, AGLC’s standard applies to them. SRIG s. 4.6.1 bars athletes, coaches, officials and anyone able to influence an event from betting on events overseen by their sport’s governing body. Operators must monitor for it and report it. In plain words: once you’re 18, no betting on your own sport.
US research gives a sense of the habits some will meet. Among US college students who bet, 41% had bet on their own school’s teams (NCAA, 2023). That is US context, and it is why the rule is worth learning before it applies.
Inside information matters now. Sharing an injury, a line-up or team news with someone who bets is an integrity problem, even for an athlete who never places a bet. Young athletes should know what an approach looks like, how to say no, and who to tell, before anyone tries.
What Alberta has, and what it doesn’t
Alberta funds research through AGRI, treatment through Recovery Alberta, and player education through GameSense. Each has a clear role, and we don’t duplicate any of them.
GameSense, run by AGLC, reaches Alberta players and fans. It is on Oilers and Flames helmets and at major venues, and it has a parent page, “Talking to kids about gambling”, at gamesenseab.ca. We found no GameSense program for schools or youth teams. We would point every family we reach to its parent resources.
Alberta’s high-school CALM course includes an outcome on the negative impact of gambling, and CALM is being redeveloped (field test 2026/27, mandatory 2028/29). We are building our content to map to CALM outcomes. But we found no current, funded, province-wide school gambling-prevention program in Alberta.
The closest model is in Ontario: the Responsible Gambling Council’s Beyond the Game, a free, roughly 30-minute, facilitator-led module for Grade 11–12 student-athletes and their coaches, launched in December 2025.
The need shows even at university level. In preliminary Alberta research, 85% of 20 post-secondary student-athletes were not aware of their sport’s betting policies. The researchers said current strategies “may not be reaching student-athletes”, and participants asked for a session once a season (Smith et al., 2026).
Alberta has not run a youth gambling survey since 2005 (Alberta Gambling Research Institute, research plan 2025), before legal online sports betting existed. We found no current province-wide baseline for under-18 athletes. A youth baseline study, with parental consent and ethics approval, is planned for the 2027–28 season.
What education does
For under-18 athletes, we teach risk, not technique. No odds, no betting math, no bet types, and no operator names, logos or apps.
Sessions cover the law; how betting reaches young athletes and fans; why the house always wins over time, as an idea rather than a calculation; integrity, inside information and approaches; harassment as athletes move up; and where help lives.
Education should be measured, not assumed. The Responsible Gambling Council reports that in its own pilot of Beyond the Game, 92% of students learned where to go for help and 76% intended to use the strategies. Those are RGC’s figures.
Every AWARE session will be independently evaluated, anonymously and with consent, and the results published in full, favourable or not.
One conversation a season, before it matters.
University athletes in the Alberta research asked for a session once a season. We are building that for younger athletes: a Team Session in the team’s own space, about 50 minutes, delivered by a university athlete from the same sport, with the coach present. Free to every team, school and club.
We intend to seek to become the Alberta delivery partner for Beyond the Game, subject to the Responsible Gambling Council’s agreement, and to add an Alberta module on the law, integrity rules, harassment awareness and Alberta help.