If you grew up thinking of gambling as something that happened at a casino or a corner store, the phone version can be hard to picture. There's no building, no clerk checking ID, no cash changing hands. There's an app with a team logo on it, and it looks a lot like the sports app next to it.
That's the part worth knowing. Not that your kid is gambling, but that the tools are ordinary, legal, and sitting in the same app store as everything else.
What changed
In April 2022, Ontario opened a regulated online gambling market. Today there are dozens of licensed sportsbook and casino apps from names you've seen on hockey broadcasts: bet365, FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, theScore Bet, PROLINE+ and more. They are legitimate businesses, regulated by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, and they are required to keep anyone under 19 out.
They also advertise constantly. CAMH's 2025 survey of Ontario students in grades 7 to 12 found that 23% see or hear online gambling ads every day. In the same survey, 10% of students said they had placed an online sports bet in the past year. In 2017 that number was 1%.
How a 15-year-old gets past a 19+ check
The age check at signup is real. It verifies that the person opening the account is 19 or older, usually by matching a name, birthdate, and address, sometimes with a photo of ID. What it can't verify is who is holding the phone afterward.
In practice, teens get in three ways: an account opened with a parent's information, an older sibling's or friend's account that stays logged in, or a parent's own account on a shared tablet. None of these require any technical skill. The regulator has also fined operators whose checks simply failed; in August 2026 one Ontario operator was fined $120,000 after 23 underage accounts were opened.
The quiet signal: a licensed sportsbook app on a 14-year-old's phone isn't proof of anything. But someone 19 or older had to be involved for it to work, and that's a conversation worth having with the adult, not just the kid.
The apps that aren't called gambling
The licensed sportsbooks are the obvious category. Three others are easier to miss.
Slot and casino games. Apps like Coin Master, Slotomania, and Zynga Poker don't pay out real money, but they sell coins for real money and run on exactly the same spin-and-wait mechanics as a slot machine. Both app stores rate them 17+ or 18+ for "simulated gambling." Coin Master in particular is marketed with cartoons and celebrity ads, and it's on a lot of young phones.
Sweepstakes casinos. These sites run slots and table games with two currencies: one you play with, one you can cash out. They argue they're promotional contests, not gambling, which means no provincial regulator is checking ages. Most of them run in a browser rather than an app, so they can live on a phone as a bookmark or home-screen shortcut.
Look-alike apps. Offshore brands like Stake and Roobet aren't on Google Play, but apps using their names are. They're usually puzzle games made by someone else, cashing in on the search. One "Roobet casino" app is rated 3+. A kid who installed one was looking for the real thing, which is the part that matters.
What a phone check can and can't tell you
Honest version: a scan of installed apps will show you the sportsbook apps, the slot games, and the look-alikes. It will not show you gambling that happens in a web browser, and a fair amount of the riskier stuff does. Sweepstakes casinos, offshore crypto casinos, and the sites where kids bet video-game skins are all websites, not apps.
So treat the scan as one input, not the whole answer. The other inputs are the ones the Responsible Gambling Council points to: a sudden intense interest in game outcomes beyond their own team, checking scores for games they're not watching, betting slang showing up in conversation, unexplained requests for money, and mood that tracks with results.
What Device Nanny shows you
Device Nanny identifies gambling and simulated-gambling apps by what they actually are, whatever name or icon they show on the home screen, and flags them in plain language. It also shows you what's changed since your last check-in, so a sportsbook app that appears between scans stands out rather than blending in with everything else.
If you find one, start with curiosity
Most teens who try sports betting are doing what their friends and their favourite players' sponsors are doing. "I saw you've got bet365 on here. Whose account is that, and how's it going?" gets you further than a confrontation. You'll often learn something about a friend's older brother, or about your own login, that you didn't know.
If the money or the mood worries you, ConnexOntario is free, confidential, and open 24 hours: call 1-866-531-2600 or text CONNEX to 247247. They can point you to youth gambling support in your area.
Device Nanny shows you every app on your child's phone by what it really is, including the ones in this guide. See how it works or download it for Windows.