GAMBLING DISORDERS 360°

Shayna Adams has joined the NCRG staff as program officer. She will be responsible for assisting with the grants program, social media and NCRG educational programs. Shayna served as a research analyst for the Framingham Heart Study. She received the MPH degree at Boston University School of Public Health with specialization in epidemiology.

The Responsible Gaming Association of New Mexico, a collaboration of many of the state’s Native American owned casinos, has awarded NCRG a grant of $300,000 in support of research on the subpopulations of New Mexico, including racial or ethnic subgroups such as Native Americans or Hispanics/Latinos, age-based subgroups such as older adults or youth, and/or highly targeted subgroups such as Native American young adults living in Albuquerque.

Gambling Disorder Screening Day (Screening Day) is a one-day event held annually on the second Tuesday of March during Problem Gambling Awareness Month. Established in 2014 by the Division on Addiction at Cambridge Health Alliance, Screening Day has included supporters and screeners from Cambridge Health Alliance, Massachusetts and New England, the United States, and around the world. Screening Day has helped identify individuals in those regions who might have Gambling Disorder and should seek further assessment.

The NCRG recently awarded an NCRG Center of Excellence in Gambling Research and four Seed Grants. The center grant of $355,001 was awarded to Dr. Wendy Slutske at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Dr. Slutske’s project seeks to fill the void of research on community-based studies of gambling disorder. Because so few disordered gamblers seek treatment, treatment populations cannot be considered representative of all disordered gamblers; hence, the need for broad community-based studies to answer questions about the origins and trajectory of gambling disorder.

Focusing on four unique datasets from Sweden, New Zealand, Australia and a US sample of reservation-dwelling Native Americans, Slutske’s team will pursue the following questions: (1) is living in a disadvantaged neighborhood a (potentially malleable) environmental cause of disordered gambling (DG), and if so, why? (2) where among the ~20,000 genes in the human genome are the variants associated with the risk for DG, and do these overlap with the genetic variants associated with the risk for other conditions such as alcohol use disorder?, (3) are there certain environments in which the genetic risk for DG is more likely to be expressed?, (4) when in the life course is DG more or less likely to first emerge?, and (5) are the causes of DG similar across the lifespan?

The NCRG also recently awarded four Seed Grants:

The NCRG is pleased to announce that nearly $2 million was pledged to research and education on gambling disorder in 2016. Several major casino operators pledged $1.155 million to support the organization’s mission of funding innovative research and education about gambling disorder and responsible gaming. An additional $610,000 was raised through annual contributions and conference sponsorships. These commitments put the NCRG over the $27 million mark in fundraising since its establishment in 1996.

The NCRG is pleased to announce that it will cosponsor with Sandia Resort and Casino in Albuquerque, NM, two days of treatment provider workers on March 23-24, 2017. The topics and speakers for “Evidence-based Topics on Gambling and Addiction” include:

Donald W. Black, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Director, Psychiatry Residency Training, Vice Chair for Education, Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

Connecting healthcare providers with the most up-to-date research is essential to quality care. The NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction is one of the vehicles the NCRG uses to help counselors, psychologists, social workers, physicians, nurses and public health professionals learn about the latest research on gambling disorders. In fact, the NCRG conference offers the best educational experience for healthcare providers — as evidenced by the many approvals we have received for the continuing education hours offered by the conference. At this writing, the NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction, scheduled for Sept. 25-26, 2016, in Las Vegas, is approved to provide 13.5 continuing education hours by more health care organizations than any other gambling conference. First, we have the institutions that have granted approval of all NCRG educational programs:

Peter Nathan, University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Public Health Emeritus, died on May 8, 2016, at the age of 81. The world knew Dr. Nathan as an internationally recognized scientist and researcher, focused on alcohol use disorder and other areas of addiction as well as a major figure at the University of Iowa where he served as provost and acting president. However, Dr. Nathan also made an outstanding contribution to the field of gambling disorder studies through his work with the NCRG’s scientific advisory board where he spearheaded efforts to raise the standards for conducting research on disordered gambling and recruited other distinguished scientists to the work of the NCRG. For more information and to post an online memory, visit http://www.lensingfuneral.com/obituaries/obituary-listings?obId=898044#/obituaryInfo

The National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) is pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the annual NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction, scheduled for Sept. 25-26, 2016, in Las Vegas. The keynote addresses will be delivered by three of the leading innovators in the fields of addiction and gambling disorder:

Mark L. Willenbring, MD - Moving Towards 21st Century Addiction Treatment

Dr. Willenbring, the founder and CEO of Alltyr: Transforming Treatment for Addictions and the former director of treatment research at the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is pioneering new ways to conduct addiction treatment. His talk, will focus on overcoming barriers to making scientifically based professional treatment available to the public. Dr. Willenbring was recently profiled in the New York Times.