Does the NWT’s Lotteries Act need to change?

“Mr Speaker, if there’s one thing northerners love, it’s a good bingo.”

So began Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart’s statement to the Legislative Assembly on Friday morning.

Testart wants changes to the NWT’s Lotteries Act that would allow new opportunities such as land-based casinos, arguing more gambling could transform the territory’s economy and saying it’s a “cornerstone of our northern culture.”

Municipal and community affairs minister Vince McKay agreed the Lotteries Act needs a refresh and said he’s willing to take a look at it.

However, McKay cautioned any changes to the act – a document just over a page long that was last amended in 2018 – would require consultation with Indigenous governments and the Council of Leaders. The accompanying and longer Lotteries Regulations were last updated in 2011.

The Maca minister said he could bring the Lotteries Act forward as a potential topic of discussion for the Council of Leaders, but could not guarantee it would make it onto the next agenda.

“We need to cut the red tape and regulations that hold us back from joining the rest of Canada,” Testart said, inviting political colleagues to close their eyes and “imagine a hotel and resort sitting on the shores of the big lakes, raking in cold, hard cash from eager tourists, enriching the coffers of Indigenous and public governments.”

Testart said casinos, video lottery terminals and online betting are “billion-dollar opportunities.” He said the NWT has a small but popular gambling and gaming industry that could capture more of these revenues. 

“Let’s not shy away from this cornerstone of our northern culture and instead find a way to work with Indigenous governments to make new economic opportunities out of these traditions,” he said, suggesting encouraging private gaming enterprise would help make the NWT a “world-class destination” while also creating revenue for the territorial government. 

What about problem gambling?

While Testart extolled the positives of more gaming in the NWT, a Statistics Canada paper published in 2022 found people who participated in many different kinds of gambling were at a higher risk of problem gambling.

Problem gambling is when a person’s gambling leads to negative consequences and a possible loss of control over their gambling behaviour.

As Testart said at the beginning of his speech: “Whether it’s bingo, hand games, chase the ace, or a simple 50-50, we all love playing games and chance at winning prizes.”

The Statistics Canada study was conducted in 2018, prior to Covid-19 and the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, which allowed single-event sports betting in 2021. It doesn’t include data from the territories, but some of its general findings remain applicable.

Most people who gamble don’t have problem gambling tendencies – like betting more than they can afford to lose, or selling things to get money to gamble. About two percent of people who gambled in the past year were at a moderate-to-severe risk of having a gambling problem.

The reported number jumps to 4.5 percent for people who are Indigenous.

Indigenous people in southern Canada also reported higher rates of gambling in 2018, when 72.4 percent of people surveyed reported gambling in the past 12 months compared to 64.2 percent of non-Indigenous people.

“Men, persons living in lower-income households, who were single, divorced or separated, who rated their mental health as fair or poor, or who participated in many different gambling activities were at higher risk of problem gambling,” the study also found.

At the moment, the NWT’s Lotteries Act regulations state a business or group can only operate a casino for a period of up to three days once every six months, and that must be for a “charitable or religious object or purpose.”

The regulations mostly deal with how to run bingos, Nevadas, raffles and sports draft lotteries.