BET99 has launched a responsible-gaming commercial pairing Montreal Canadiens winger Cole Caufield with former UFC champion Georges St-Pierre, using comic roles and repeated references to player-control tools.
Caufield plays BET99’s “Assistant” Responsible Gambling Ambassador, while St-Pierre is cast as its “Supreme” Ambassador. BET99 chief executive Jared Beber also appears as himself. Covers described one scene in which St-Pierre wears face paint and “GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY” across his chest while sharing danishes with Caufield.
The advert repeatedly names time limits, wager limits and deposit limits. BET99 said the aim was to make the safeguards memorable through humour and the unlikely pairing of the two athletes, so that users better understand the tools available to manage their play.
Caufield said responsible gambling meant knowing one’s limits and using the available help. St-Pierre framed it as a matter of control, echoing the discipline and focus he said had defined his fighting career. BET99 offers self-exclusion programmes, timeouts and limits alongside other player-control measures.
The campaign extends BET99’s multi-year partnership with St-Pierre, who has appeared in several earlier commercials for the operator. The commercial features St-Pierre first in a karate gi and later in a “Gamble responsibly” shirt, and was scheduled to run on digital, linear and connected television.
The commercial arrives in a regulatory environment that places particular limits on gambling advertising involving public figures. Ontario’s internet-gaming standards were updated effective Feb. 28, 2024, to prohibit athletes and restrict celebrities in iGaming advertising and marketing. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario also requires advertising to be truthful and not misleading, bars marketing that targets underage, high-risk or self-excluded people, and tightly limits the public advertising of inducements, bonuses and credits.
The rules followed a sharp expansion of legal online gambling and its advertising in Canada. A Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction report found that the opening of Ontario’s market and legalization of single-event sports betting had increased both legal gambling opportunities and gambling advertising, especially around live sports broadcasts. It warned that sports-betting promotions featuring celebrities can normalize gambling for youth and young adults.
Ontario launched its regulated iGaming market on April 4, 2022. Ad Standards began accepting complaints under the Canadian Gaming Association’s Code for Responsible Gaming Advertising on Jan. 1, covering gambling, gaming and betting advertising communicated to Canadians by code signatories in any medium.
