Big jump in Islanders at risk from gambling, along with P.E.I.'s gambling revenues

The proportion of Islanders at risk from gambling tripled between 2005 and 2019, according to a prevalence study delivered to the P.E.I. government more than two years ago.

The study, which was only released to the public last month, concluded 11,137 Prince Edward Islanders were at some level of risk from gambling, or 8.6 per cent of the adult population.

A prior 2005 study had put the number at 2.8 per cent.

"It is difficult to determine how much of this increase may be due to differences in the way this information was collected, but the increase warrants attention and further investigation," the authors of the 2019 review concluded.

That study was conducted by researchers at UPEI working as part of a national program known as SPOR, the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, meant to inform public health decision-making.

The study also concluded Islanders between the ages of 18-34 were three times as likely to be at risk of harm from their gambling compared with those 55 or older, while those who gambled online were 3.6 times as likely to be at risk compared to those who gambled in person.

Mary-Ann Standing, one of the epidemiologists behind the research, said the harm could range from "harms to their financial situation or their household's financial situation, to their personal relationships, to their mental health.... There's lots of different aspects of someone's life that could be impacted by their gambling."

Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker said his party was surprised to learn of the existence of the 2019 study by seeing it referenced in the province's new responsible gambling strategy.

Bevan-Baker said his biggest concern was in relation to the figures for younger Islanders, between the age of 18 and 34. 

"That's also the population which uses online gambling which we know is far more problematic."

He said he hoped this would put to rest the government's plans, put on indefinite hold in 2021, to launch its own online casino through the Atlantic Lottery Corporation.

"One of the worst places that government should be relying on [for] profit-making is from online gambling, because we know how that is destructive to lives, the lives of Islanders," Bevan-Baker said.

While P.E.I.'s cabinet gave its blessing in late 2020 to a proposal from Atlantic Lotto to launch an online casino, the province eventually balked, facing opposition from MLAs from all parties in the legislature, including the governing PCs.

Last month, finance minister Jill Burridge said the province has no current plans to go ahead with an online casino, something the other three Atlantic provinces have all now agreed to.