As the gambling industry continues to grow globally with the rise of online gambling, a recent report from the medical journal The Lancet’s commission on gambling calls is calling on governments to approach gambling as a public health issue.

Malcolm Sparrow, one of the authors of the report, says this will put gambling in the same category as alcohol and tobacco, which are identified by the World Health Organization as issues of the public interest.

Statistics Canada estimates that in 2018, nearly two-thirds of Canadians gambled in the past year. The data estimates that about 300,000 Canadians were at moderate-to-severe risk of developing a gambling problem, where gambling starts to negatively affect a person’s life.