Hatred hurled at Raptors stars shows ugly influence sports betting can have on fandom

Ontario is celebrating a profitable first year for its legalized sports betting market — but to hear two members of the Toronto Raptors talk about it, gambling's expansion comes with an ugly side.

Speaking on Yahoo Sports Canada's Hustle Play podcast in March, forward Chris Boucher said social media can impact professional athletes, and used a deplorable message he was sent as an example.

"Somebody said 'I chose the wrong slave today.' Literally, sent me that message," Boucher said. "I had to read it, I couldn't believe it. He said, 'I chose the wrong slave,' because I had only five points and he needed me to score 10."

Fellow Raptor Fred VanVleet also touched on the issue of fan abuse while speaking with Yahoo's Strictly Hoops podcast. 

"You can't fathom dealing with this on a daily basis," he said "You can't fathom a 'I hope your mom dies' DM every day."

Former Olympian and sport and public policy expert Bruce Kidd was aghast when shown a clip of Boucher's interview by CBC News.

"It's very upsetting that athletes are under this pressure and they're getting these attacks from not meeting the point spread or the parlay that a bettor has placed," said Kidd, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

"I'm at a loss for words about how upsetting that is. It so demeans the value of sport — that sport is only for people to be making money out of bets."

But lots of money is being spent on bets in Ontario today.

Last April, Ontario became the first Canadian province to launch an open, regulated igaming market, called iGaming Ontario (iGo).

Since then, iGo said there've been over 1.6 million active player accounts on websites run by more than 40 operators that have agreements with iGaming Ontario.

iGo announced on April 4