Should gambling taxes fund sports? Former Olympian says it's a 'devil's bargain'

The regime testament be making a "devil's buy" if it moves forward with a testimonial to boost revenue for sport organizations through taxes on sports gambling, former track and field Olympian Bruce Kidd said.

A commission this week strongly urged the federal government to find new sources of revenue, including sports betting, to address a funding crisis hurting national sport organizations. 

Kidd said that move would legitimize and normalize sports betting which can be highly addictive.

"We don't want sport encouraging a demonstrably harmful practice," said Kidd, a retired professor of sports policy at the University of Toronto.

The Future of Sport in Canada Commission found Canada's sport system is broken, plagued with widespread abuse at all levels, and federal funding has fallen behind the system's demands. The final report called for sweeping reforms including for Ottawa to increase core funding for national sport organizations to account for inflation over the past 20 years. 

Kidd and his advocacy group sent a letter to the secretary of state for sport Adam van Koeverden, calling on him to ignore the recommendation to consider sports betting as a new source of revenue.

"It's a devil's bargain," said Kidd, who is also chair of the Campaign to Ban Gambling Ads.

"I fear that sports bodies will become advocates for sports betting because they indirectly benefit from the proceeds."

"I think it's an interesting one, and we want to see more contributions from the private sector," van Koeverden said.

But Kidd said the idea is reminiscent of a strategy imposed by the tobacco industry in the 1980s when it sponsored sports events to normalize the cancerous effects of smoking. 

Controversy erupted in 1983 when the Canadian Ski Association signed a $1.7-million deal with RJR-MacDonald Tobacco Inc. To name the Canadian ski championships the Export A series, the Ottawa Citizen reported at the time. 

Dr. Andrew Pipe, a special adviser with the Future of Sport in Canada Commission, happened to be a key figure in a fight against this practice. 

A ski team doctor at the time with the ski association, Pipe argued that through their sponsorship, the tobacco firm had produced a "financial addiction similar to the physical addiction of tobacco," a Winnipeg Sun article said on Dec. 2, 1983.

Canada's sports system needs more funding to be safer, commission says

Pipe was part of an effort to lobby the government to ban tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting events. The law eventually changed in 1997.

"We need a similar ruling from the federal government that if a sports body gets in bed with betting companies, they will lose all their public money," Kidd said. 

At a news conference on Tuesday before Kidd's letter was sent, Pipe was asked about the commission's recommendation to consider sports betting as a source of revenue when their work also flagged problems with sports gambling.  

Pipe said sports gambling is a "very pressing problem that needs careful examination" in the future. 

"But we just did not have the resources or the time to begin addressing the rather monumental challenges that surround that issue," he said. 

The commission's report said gambling is also leading to a "newly emerging form" of maltreatment in sport. Competition manipulation, or what's known as match fixing, is causing people to try and sway athletes, coaches or officials to influence the outcome of a sport for their financial gain.

The report said these "fixers" bribe, intimidate, threaten physical harm or exploit people's weaknesses to get what they want. 

"Competition manipulation is a serious threat to sport's integrity because it is often associated with gambling and linked to organized crime," the report said. "However, it is also a direct threat to athlete safety."

The commission spoke to more than 1,000 people over nearly two years including victims and survivors of abuse, sport organizations and advocacy groups. The final report found many participants did want the federal government to address a critical funding gap through sports gambling revenue like other countries do. 

Report finds chronic underfunding and widespread maltreatment in Canadian sport

The report said Norway pours more than $400 million US a year into sport from revenue brought in through gambling and national sports betting. Japan also channeled more than $100 million US into community sport from its lottery sales, the report said. 

Others told the commission they "vehemently" opposed the idea because of the risk of addiction and Canadians' well-being, the final report said. 

Kidd said there needs to be more funding for sports, but told van Koeverden in his group's letter that all of the money from sports betting should go toward treatment for those addicted and education programs to reduce the harms. 

The rate of young men contacting Ontario's mental health helpline for problems related to gambling has increased by more than 300 per cent after the province allowed online gambling and single-event sports betting, according to a study published this month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The government is now reviewing the commission's recommendations and charting a path forward.

It's looking at "revamping" the Canadian sport system, van Koeverden said, and where it needs to increase or adjust funding.

He said while the core funding for national sport organizations has not met the rate of inflation, the government has increased annual sport funding from $135 million in 2005 to $266 million this year.

Senior reporter

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