'Bigger issue than doping': Canada flirting with disaster amid growth of legalized sports gambling

Jeremy Luke says then when it comes to gambling, Canada is flirting with disaster.

Luke, the president and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), says that as Canada embraces legalized gambling, a betting "scandal" involving match fixing or athletes betting on sports in which they participate in is inevitable.

"I think this is a major issue facing sport. I'd suggest it's as big, perhaps even bigger of an issue than doping is as far as the integrity of sport is concerned," Luke told CBC Sports. "The potential for manipulation and corruption, it's a huge risk that faces sport in Canada.

"Many other countries are very, very far ahead as far as trying to deal with it and protect athletes. As we think about sport integrity issues and safety issues in Canada, this has to be top of mind."

Since single-game betting became legal in Canada, the industry has exploded. If you follow sport in Canada, even casually, the ubiquitous presence of gambling is inescapable. From the deluge of advertising on television, radio and online to ads on the fields of play and players' jerseys, it can't be avoided. Leagues that once eschewed gambling now embrace it, forming partnerships and reaping millions in advertising revenue.

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In Canada, Ontario has been the only province to formally regulate dozens of operators who for years operated in a so-called grey zone. In doing this, the province has been able to quantify just how much money Ontarians are betting on sports. In the last year alone, that number exceeded more than $35 billion dollars.

It's against this backdrop that the CCES is behind an urgent push to help Canadian sport protect the integrity of its games and educate athletes about gambling.

"Given that Canada has moved to legalize single-event sport betting and enabled provinces to offer this type of activity to Canadians and we're seeing it through the significant amount of advertising," Luke said. "I think that just makes it that much more susceptible to issues of manipulation and corruption and that much more of a reason why we have an obligation to protect the sport and to protect the participants within the sporting system."

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One area the CCES is focusing on is the country's national sport organizations (NSO), which are responsible for identifying and training about 4,000 Canadian athletes for international competition, including the Olympics.

Jerome McEniry is a lawyer with the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and is the organization's point of contact for sports betting and match manipulation.

McEniry said the organization that oversees Canada's vast Olympic operations is "concerned" about the "vulnerability" of Canadian athletes.

The CCES and the COC are involved in a pilot project with six NSOs, including basketball, curling and soccer, educating athletes on things like how to recognize match manipulation and what to do about it.