Gretzky, McDavid and Matthews draw criticism as they refuse to comment on their gambling sponsorships

The single biggest difference in hockey broadcasts over the past two calendar years has to be the introduction of sports betting on major networks like Sportsnet, TSN and, to a lesser degree, ESPN.

If you've tuned into a Sportsnet or TSN broadcast at any point this season you've no doubt been absolutely hammered with countless ads for bookies like Bet MGM, Draft Kings and Bet99.net. To me, it's absolutely out of control. Nearly half the ads on a Sportsnet broadcast are betting ads and now the in-game commentary features betting lines and odds analysis. It's too much in my opinion.

What's even worse to me is that some of our sport's biggest names seemingly have no problem aligning themselves with these corporations. Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid both appear alongside each other in Bet MGM's commercials, while Auston Matthews flogs Bet99 in their ads. Again, it's too much.

In a CBC investigative piece for The Fifth Estate, journalist Pete Evans tries to hold people like Gretzky, McDavid and Matthews accountable for their sponsorships and tries to get them to explain exactly why they chose to align themselves with these brands. Their answer? No comment.

"I appreciate the question, but... I don't think I'm going to get into it much, honestly," Matthews told CBC recently on his partnership with Bet99.net.

"You guys have any more hockey-related questions?" he said. "I would just like to keep on that if that's OK. If not, we can just move forward."

CBC also reached out to Bet MGM for access to both Gretzky and McDavid but were told, "they're too busy to talk to us". Wow...

In the U.K., the federal government is now restricting gambling advertisements after years of allowing celebrity endorsements.

"I suspect history would judge them very harshly," said Will Prochaska, strategy director with Gambling with Lives, a U.K. group advocating for tougher controls around gambling.

"They would have been offered enormous sums of money to I think sully their own reputations in the interest of profit for the gambling operators. I suspect they don't understand the damage that they're doing."

"If you consider the Gretzky case, much like so many other athletes, what you end up here with is a message that gambling is not just acceptable, but desirable for an entire generation," said Darragh McGee, a lecturer with the department for health at the University of Bath in western England.

"A lot of them struggle to get through 90 minutes without having to bet on the game," said McGee, who studies the impact of gambling on young men.

"It speaks to the way in which gambling is hardwired itself into sport in ways that have altered our very experience of sport."

Personally, I feel like Canada is really playing with fire with regards to its approach to sports gambling. We're living in the Wild West of this stuff, but we can look to the U.K. as an example of what can happen.

A 2021 study by Public Health England revealed, on average, that 409 British people per year take their own lives in suicides related to problem gambling. Tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands find themselves in financial ruin due to gambling addiction. It's a serious problem and unless Canada takes action, I predict a lot of hockey fans will find themselves at the mercy of crippling addiction.