Gambling is entertainment that costs money. It is not a way to make money, and any page telling you otherwise is selling you something.
Free confidential help, anywhere in Canada. You do not need a diagnosis or a crisis to use any of these.
Ontario — ConnexOntario, 1-866-531-2600, 24/7. Quebec — Gambling: Help and Referral, 1-800-461-0140. British Columbia — the Problem Gambling Help Line, 1-888-795-6111. Alberta — Health Link, 811. Manitoba and Saskatchewan — provincial health lines carry gambling support referrals. Nationally, the Canada Safety Council maintains problem gambling resources, and Gamblers Anonymous runs meetings in most Canadian cities and online.
Signs worth taking seriously. Betting more to feel the same thing. Chasing a loss with a bigger stake. Playing with money set aside for rent, groceries or bills. Hiding how much you play from people close to you. Borrowing to gamble. Feeling irritable when you cannot play. Any one of these on its own is worth a conversation.
Tools you can switch on today. Every operator on this site offers at least some of these, and using them is not an admission of anything:
Deposit limits, set daily, weekly or monthly — the single most effective control there is, because it works before you are in a session rather than during one. Loss limits and session time reminders. A cooling-off period of a few days. Self-exclusion, which locks the account for a fixed term or permanently. Provincial sites also participate in provincial self-exclusion programmes, which offshore operators do not — another real difference between the two.
A note specific to this site's topic. Interac deposits are fast and frictionless, which is convenient and is also exactly what makes them easy to repeat without thinking. If you are funding an account several times in one evening, that is worth noticing. Setting a deposit limit removes the decision from the moment you are least able to make it well.
If you are worried about someone else. The helplines above support family and friends too, and you do not need the person's permission to call and ask what to do.