The Responsible Gambling Council has expanded its Post-Secondary Campus Tour to 40 publicly funded colleges and universities across Ontario for the 2026-27 academic year. Backed by iGaming Ontario, the programme has doubled from 20 campuses and is intended to generate up to 10,000 in-person interactions with students.
The expansion includes funding for at least 10,000 Student Education Kits. The kits, to be distributed through campus health services, residence-life, wellness and student-services teams, combine gambling-harm-prevention information with a BetGuard card and QR code.
Students will also be able to take part in the Random Tower, a life-sized Jenga-style activity led by RGC-trained, peer-aged ambassadors. Its messages focus on gambling harm reduction and on the role of randomness and factors outside an individual’s control in gambling and sports-betting outcomes. The ambassadors will lead prevention conversations, answer questions and direct students to support resources.
The campus programme incorporates BetGuard, Ontario’s centralized self-exclusion tool for regulated online gambling. It is available to people aged 19 and over through a single online portal. Those who opt out are blocked from existing accounts, opening new ones and receiving marketing communications from regulated iGaming sites in the province.
The tour has operated for 25 years and builds on RGC prevention work funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health. RGC says adults aged 18 to 24 are among the groups at highest risk of gambling harm, while about 70% of young Ontarians attend college or university. Sarah McCarthy, RGC’s chief executive, said meeting students on campus could help them understand risks and available options.
iGaming Ontario, an Ontario Crown agency, created BetGuard on behalf of the provincial government. Ontario’s regulated iGaming market includes more than 75 sites, while the government has invested more than $421 million since 2018 in gambling-related public education, support, campaigns and research.
