Several years ago, Alex Blaszczynski, Robert Ladouceur and Howard Shaffer met in Reno, Nevada, where the three scientists began a dialogue about the need for a strategic framework to guide responsible gaming policy. Their discussions about how to eliminate the potential harms from gambling continued over time, across the continents and through numerous e-mails, resulting in the paper, “A Science-based Framework for Responsible Gambling: The Reno Model.” The authors urge all the key stakeholders — health providers, scientists, the gaming industry, elected officials, regulators, community organizers and consumers — to find common ground and combine forces to address gambling-related problems. Just as the seminal 1949 Boulder conference on graduate education in clinical psychology established the ‘‘Boulder Model’’ as a guide for training clinical psychologists, the Reno Model is intended to provide a strategic framework to help (1) shape the direction for developing responsible gambling initiatives, and (2) stimulate a rich and enduring dialogue about responsible gambling concepts and related initiatives.
The paper was published in the Journal of Gambling Studies in 2004.