Last month, the National Center for Responsible Gaming’s (NCRG) annual road tour visited Cleveland – one of Ohio’s new casino jurisdictions – where representatives met with treatment providers, policymakers, researchers and community leaders. As casino development in the city gets underway, the NCRG encouraged these stakeholder groups to work together to implement state-of-the-art responsible gaming programs and to adopt research-based policies that effectively minimize gambling related harms.
The road tour kicked off on July 22 with a workshop for treatment providers, which examined how the latest findings in the field of disordered gambling research can be implemented in a clinical setting. The workshop – which drew more than 100 local clinicians – was the most widely attended event in the four-year history of the road tour. It featured a presentation by Dr. Jon E. Grant, the principal investigator at the NCRG Center of Excellence at the University of Minnesota, who discussed the neurobiology of gambling disorders, comorbidity and the efficacy of various drug treatment strategies.
The following day, NCRG Board Member Phil Satre spoke during the Friday Forum luncheon at The City Club of Cleveland. He discussed the public health implications of gambling disorders and the importance of developing robust responsible gaming programs. He also highlighted several tools available through the NCRG that could be useful in Ohio, including a casino employee training program and recommendations from the National Task Force on College Gambling Policies.
“Ohio has a unique opportunity to be a national leader on responsible gaming – and efforts to address gambling disorders – from the outset,” Satre told attendees. “It is only through collaboration and cooperation that communities can truly endorse a comprehensive approach to these issues.” His speech was broadcasted to more than 160 radio stations in 38 states.
The road tour also included a dinner with Cleveland community leaders and one-on-one meetings with representatives from various local stakeholder groups.
