We are not building a second GameSense.
Alberta already has research, treatment, player education and statutory self-exclusion. All are established and funded. We do not want their file, their budget or their audience. Our job is narrower: reach the under-18 athletes on Alberta’s high-school and youth club teams, in their own team space, and point them and their families back into that system.
Who holds what in Alberta
An honest inventory of the province’s responsible-gambling system as it stands in October 2026. Six functions are held, funded and working. One row is empty, and it sits where Alberta’s under-18 athletes actually are: on their teams.
AWARE Community Foundation exists to fill exactly these three, for high-school and youth club teams. Nothing in the row above them, and nothing beyond them.
The same map, with the detail
| Function | Who holds it | Audience |
|---|---|---|
| Research | Alberta Gambling Research Institute, a consortium of the Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge, principally funded by the Province. | Academic · general population |
| Treatment & recovery | Recovery Alberta, delivering provincial addiction and mental-health services. | People already in harm |
| Player & parent education | GameSense Alberta, AGLC’s player-education program. It is visible in pro sport, on Oilers and Flames helmets and at major venues; runs sports-betting pages for adults; and has a parent page, “Talking to kids about gambling.” We found no GameSense school or youth-team program. | Alberta players, fans and parents |
| Prevention content | Responsible Gambling Council, Canada’s independent prevention body. Its Beyond the Game module, launched December 2025, is a free, facilitator-led session of about 30 minutes for Grade 11–12 student-athletes and their coaches. It is currently available in Ontario; RGC cites potential expansion to other markets in 2026. | National · Ontario student-athletes |
| Self-exclusion | AGLC, centralized and statutory across licensed operators. | Players choosing to stop |
| Keeping youth sport off betting menus | AGLC, through SRIG s. 4.6.5 (issued 17 March 2026): bets only where most participants are 18 or older, and no bets on minor league sports in Canada, including the CHL. | Operators |
| Market operations | Alberta iGaming Corporation, which conducts and manages the market and holds the commercial agreements with licensed operators; AGLC regulates. | Operators |
| School sport | School Sport Alberta (formerly the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association), which governs high-school sport in over 400 high schools, for over 55,000 students a year, across 11 sports. It is not a gambling body; we name it for context only. | High-school athletes, coaches, schools |
| Betting-risk education for under-18 teams | Largely unheld in Alberta. We found no current, funded, province-wide school gambling-prevention program in Alberta. Beyond the Game exists for Grade 11–12 student-athletes in Ontario, and we intend to seek to become its Alberta delivery partner, subject to the Responsible Gambling Council’s agreement. AWARE adds university athlete ambassadors from the same sport and an Alberta module: the law, integrity rules, harassment awareness and Alberta help. That is the whole of our mandate. | Under-18 high-school and youth club athletes, their coaches, athletic directors and parents |
Organizations are named here to describe Alberta’s existing system accurately. Naming implies no affiliation, partnership, review or endorsement in either direction, and AWARE has no relationship or agreement with any of them. Sources: AGLC SRIG ss. 4.6.1 and 4.6.5; GameSense Alberta (gamesenseab.ca); Responsible Gambling Council; School Sport Alberta. Where an arrangement changes, this page changes. Last reviewed October 2026.
What we deliberately do not do
A new organization earns trust faster by naming its limits than by listing its ambitions. These are ours, and they are structural rather than temporary.
We do not fund or conduct primary research
AGRI holds that mandate and the provincial funding for it. We commission independent evaluation of our own sessions, and we would rather an AGRI-affiliated evaluator did it than mark our own homework. Any research with under-18 athletes needs parental consent and research-ethics approval.
We do not deliver treatment
We are an education and prevention body. Every session ends with where help lives: Kids Help Phone, 988, the Recovery Alberta Addiction Helpline and a trusted adult. We refer; we do not treat.
We do not compete with GameSense
GameSense is AGLC’s program. It reaches Alberta players and fans, is visible in pro sport, and has a parent page on talking to kids about gambling. We reach the under-18 athletes on the teams, and we point their parents to GameSense’s parent resources.
We do not regulate, investigate or adjudicate
AGLC regulates. Its SRIG s. 4.6.5 keeps youth sport off betting menus, and s. 4.6.1 bars athletes from betting on events in their own sport. We teach the s. 4.6.1 rule before athletes turn 18, before they are ever in a position to break it. Sport bodies enforce eligibility. We hold no disciplinary power and want none.
We do not rewrite existing curricula
The Responsible Gambling Council built Beyond the Game for Grade 11–12 student-athletes, and it is currently offered in Ontario. We intend to seek to become its Alberta delivery partner, subject to RGC’s agreement. We would add only what is Alberta-specific: the law, AGLC’s integrity rules, harassment awareness and Alberta help.
We do not run classroom programs for non-athletes
No festival booths, no province-wide advertising, and no classroom program for students who are not on a team. Classroom teaching belongs to teachers and Alberta’s CALM curriculum, which already includes an outcome on the negative impact of gambling. Our session maps to CALM outcomes; it does not replace them.
We do not deliver to university athletes
University and college athletes are not our audience. They are our ambassadors: current athletes, aged 19 or older and past their first year, matched by sport, screened and trained to deliver to high-school and youth club teams. They stay bound by their own institution’s and conference’s rules, and while they serve, they do not gamble in any form.
We do not put funders near young people
All partner money goes into one pool. No funder is credited on, or connected to, any ambassador, school, club or session, and no funder’s name or logo appears anywhere near under-18 athletes. Ambassadors are never made available to a funder as marketing talent. This will be in every agreement →
Team access is the part that cannot be bought
Schools and clubs, reasonably, do not open their team rooms to anyone with an industry cheque. A session has to be invited in by the school or club, delivered by someone the team respects, with the coach in the room.
School sport
School Sport Alberta governs high-school sport in over 400 high schools. Its Strategic Plan 2025–29 includes “Provide an opportunity for sportsmanship training to all schools.” School divisions and individual schools decide what reaches their students. We have not contacted SSA or any school division.
Youth clubs and provincial sport organizations
Club teams and provincial sport organizations reach the athletes moving up to provincial, junior and high-performance levels, where integrity starts to matter most. Our integrity content is built to sit alongside the rules each sport already sets, not to reinterpret them.
Universities and colleges
Alberta’s universities and colleges are where our ambassadors come from. A university volleyball player delivers to high-school volleyball teams and youth volleyball clubs; the same goes for basketball, hockey, soccer, football and other sports. We intend to talk to Alberta university athletic departments before recruiting any ambassador.
Parents and families
Parents hear from the school or club at least 7 days before any session, and can withdraw their child without explanation. Our free Family Guide, publishing summer 2027, will point them to GameSense’s parent resources and Alberta help.
These are the organizations our programs are designed to work through. AWARE has no relationship or agreement with any of them. Specific relationships will be named on this site only once they are agreements rather than intentions. School Sport Alberta figures are from SSA’s own website.