PAPER QUIPS: Gambling’s rise means real stakes for society

Published 5:00 pm Monday, January 19, 2026

Easy money.

It’s a concept and phrase I’m sure we’ve all heard before. A way for us to ‘get rich quick’ and escape our day-to-day lives of working and making ends meet. Lord knows I’ve been tempted from time to time to participate in a raffle or 50/50 draw at a community event as a way to donate, but also, potentially win a little extra cash.

One thing I and many others have noticed a rise in over the last few years, but certainly in 2025, is the prevalence of gambling and gambling mechanics in mainstream society.

There was a time when, if you wanted to gamble, you had to go to a casino to do so. In the United States, gambling was largely illegal outside of Las Vegas, while here in Canada, it’s always been allowed in a regulated form, though changes to the Criminal Code in the 1970s led to the rise of the first commercial casinos in the 1980s.

The internet, as with so much else, has changed that. It has allowed the growth of online casinos, legal and otherwise. Meanwhile, video games, either intentionally or unintentionally, began to introduce gambling mechanics and concepts to younger audiences, priming them for the real thing when they’re older. While such practices have been regulated since, mechanics like lootboxes remain a problem.

Sports betting, online or through bookies, remains the go-to for those looking to make some easy money. My brother, Zach, took up sports betting over the last two years. This fall, he finally won big, making $3,300 off a $20 bet during the MLB World Series.

Yet, this new explosion in online gambling isn’t solely linked to sports. Prediction markets are also rapidly becoming a way for people to bet on a wide variety of real-world events. For example, on websites like Polymarket, you can make bets right now on if and when Ukraine and Russia will enter a ceasefire, when the Iranian regime will fall, or whether or not a Canadian province will schedule a referendum to leave Canada by 2027.

Hell, one gambler in early January made a sweet $436,000 after betting that Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro would be out of power by the end of this month. That bet paid off quite nicely, clearly.

You can even make bets on the stock market, on which stocks will rise and which will fall. The payoff for these bets can be a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.

Now you might think this is all harmless fun or distasteful, but not a cause for concern. I would argue, however, that it is a sign of a deeper problem within our current economic system.

Affordability has been an issue for decades and rising inflation has meant that many young people now entering the workforce make less than their parents and substantially less than their grandparents did at their age on average, even if the number on their paycheque is technically greater. Amidst all this economic uncertainty, some people are turning to gambling as a way out. Dumping their paycheques in a virtual slot machine, viewing sports, the economy and even world events as nothing more than cogs in a great game of chance.

The house always wins at a casino, but in the world of prediction markets, based on the real world, that’s not the case. A gambler can impact the real world, especially if they’re making bets on very specific events.

For example, last year, a man threw a dildo onto the floor of a Women’s National Basketball Association game. While crude, this incident led to a market developing on when the next one would be thrown and at subsequent games, people who placed money on such an incident occurring showed up to make their bets pay off by simply throwing the items themselves.

After all, if you can influence or know the outcome of a bet, it’s easy money, right? What could be the harm…

Patrick Davies is the editor of the 100 Mile Free Press.

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