ICRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction
SAVE THE DATE! THE ICRG CONFERENCE ON GAMBLING AND ADDICTION IS GOING LIVE!
The annual ICRG conference will be held on October 9-10, 2022 in Las Vegas, in conjunction with Global Gaming Expo. More details will be available soon. In the meantime, save the date!
The 22nd Conference on Gambling and Addiction will feature a series of webinars. Attendance is free but advance registration is required. Attendees will earn 1.5 continuing education hours.
Please note continuing education hours are only available to participants of the live webinar and not available for viewing recorded sessions.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
2-3:30 p.m. EDT
Loss Chasing in Gambling Disorder: Clinical, Behavioral, and Data Science Perspectives
Speaker: Luke Clark, PhD, University of British Columbia
Loss chasing is a diagnostic item for Gambling Disorder and is present in many screening instruments for problem gambling. It is often discussed as a defining feature for differentiating disordered gambling from recreational gambling. But loss chasing can also be expressed in many ways, both within and between gambling episodes, and this creates an obstacle for understanding the ‘centrality’ of loss chasing. This talk will summarize three lines of research characterizing loss chasing on laboratory tasks, in authentic slot machines, and in online behavioral tracking data, in order to better establish the psychological underpinnings of this symptom.
Learning objectives:
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To understand current research on the clinical status of loss chasing as a key feature of disordered gambling
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To consider how loss chasing can be expressed behaviorally in a number of different ways, both within and between sessions
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To understand the importance of loss chasing as one of the few features of disordered gambling that can be detected in behavioral tracking data
Please Click here for webinar video
Please Click here for webinar slides
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
2-3:30 p.m. EDT
Pharmacotherapy Treatment of Gambling Disorder
Speaker: Marc N. Potenza, MD, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine
Gambling disorder, previously termed pathological gambling, has been recognized as a formal disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual since 1980. Currently, behavioral therapies and self-help groups like Gamblers Anonymous are the main treatment/intervention approaches utilized. While multiple medications have been tested in clinical trials for their efficacy and tolerability in the treatment of gambling disorder, no drug has an FDA indication for treating the condition. Data suggest that the vast majority of individuals with gambling disorder (more than 95%) have one or more co-occurring psychiatric disorder. As such, in clinical practice, selection of the most appropriate medication for treating individuals may be guided by co-occurring disorders. Data suggest that targeting these co-occurring disorders may bring benefits in both the co-occurring and gambling domains. In this webinar, a current understanding of the data supporting the use of medications in the treatment of people with gambling disorder will be presented.
Learning objectives:
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Appreciate the variety and complexities of co-occurring gambling and other psychiatric disorders.
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Understand the evidence base for the use of medications in the treatment of people with gambling disorder given the frequently co-occurring psychiatric conditions.
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Learn how different classes of medications (e.g., opioid receptor antagonists, mood stabilizers, serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and nutraceuticals (e.g., n-acetyl cysteine) may hold promise in the treatment of people with gambling disorder, particularly those with co-occurring disorders.
Please Click here for webinar video
Please Click here for webinar slides
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
2-3:30 p.m. EDT
Who's Responsible for Responsible Gambling?
Speaker: Heather Gray, PhD
Academics, gambling regulators, and the gambling industry increasingly espouse a shared responsibility view of preventing gambling harm. This view considers individual gamblers and external stakeholders, such as casino employees, to be jointly responsible for minimizing gambling harm. But do individual gamblers share this view? This presentation will review three years of cross-sectional surveys with participants sampled from the (MGM) MLife customer loyalty program database. In the most recent survey, fielded in January 2020 with 4,336 MLife subscribers, we observed that most participants only held individual gamblers responsible for helping prevent gambling harm. Put another way, most participants held a purely internal responsibility viewpoint. However, those who screened positive on the Brief Biosocial Gambling Screen (BBGS) were more likely than those who screened negative to hold a shared responsibility viewpoint, and holding a diffuse sense of responsibility for minimizing gambling harm predicted BBGS status over and above traditional individual-level risk factors. These findings echo the previous two years of survey findings with largely non-overlapping samples. Additionally, for the first time, we observed that those who screened positive on the BBGS were more likely than their counterparts to deny personal responsibility for minimizing gambling harm to individual gamblers; that is, they were more likely to hold a purely external responsibility viewpoint. I will discuss implications of these findings for health promotion and best practices for message design in responsible gambling programs.
Heather M. Gray, PhD is director of academic affairs at the Division on Addiction, Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has collaborated with her Division colleagues to study the development of, and recovery from, addictive disorders. In particular, she has studied how social networks and personal identities relate to alcohol and other drug use behavior. She has completed program evaluation to document how people change their lives after completing substance use disorder and wellness interventions. In collaboration with Internet and land-based gambling operators in the United States and internationally, Dr. Gray has studied how people gamble and respond to interventions designed to promote responsible gambling. She and her colleagues have secured grant funding from federal, state, and private foundation sources. Through these funds, she has developed a record that includes nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications, as well as numerous book chapters and technical reports.
Learning Objectives:
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Describe the "internal responsibility," "shared responsibility," and "external responsibility" frameworks for minimizing gambling-related harm.
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Describe the relationship between problem gambling (operationalized as scoring positive on a brief screen) and views about responsibility for minimizing gambling-related harm.
Please Click here for webinar slides
Please Click here for webinar video
The 21st Conference on Gambling and Addiction will feature a series of webinars. Attendance is free but advance registration is required. Watch for future announcements of the registration links. Until then save the dates. Attendees will earn 1.5 continuing education hours.
This year’s ICRG conference poster session will be fully virtual on Twitter, Oct. 15-22, 2020, Everyone is welcome to access new and exciting research on gambling and gambling disorder: Oct. 15-22, 2020. Click HERE for more information.
Video recordings of all webinars will be uploaded HERE post webinar.
Please note continuing education hours are only available to participants of the live webinar and not available for viewing recorded sessions.
JULY 14, 2020 2-3:30 p.m. Eastern
New Strategies in Helping Families and Loved Ones Addressing Problem Gambling
Speaker: Lori Rugle, PhD
Families and loved ones living with the issue of problem gambling experience a broad range painful harms including financial, emotional, social and spiritual and are often left feeling shame and isolation. They often do not know where to turn for help, support and understanding. This webinar will focus on how the evidence-based treatments such as Community Reinforcement and Family Treatment and other behavioral family counseling strategies combine compassion-based, motivational and behavioral perspectives can be applied to those living with gambling disorder.
Learning objectives:
- Participants will be able to utilize strategies to help family members reinforce recovery oriented behaviors in loved ones struggling with gambling disorder.
- Participants will be able to identify how traditional language of co-dependency may contribute to stigma of families and couples living with addictive disorders.
- Participants will learn strategies to assist family members in developing self-compassion and self-care.
Culturally Adapting Evidence-based Treatments in Partnership with American Indians
Speaker: Kamilla Venner, PhD (Ahtna Athabascan)
University of New Mexico
Many Indigenous communities are concerned with substance use (SU) problems and eager to advance effective solutions for their prevention and treatment. Yet these communities also are concerned about the perpetuation of colonizing, disorder-focused, stigmatizing approaches to mental health, and social narratives related to SU problems. Foundational principles of community psychology-ecological perspectives, empowerment, sociocultural competence, community inclusion and partnership, and reflective practice-provide useful frameworks for informing ethical community-based research pertaining to SU problems conducted with and by Indigenous communities.
Dr. Venner will report on her research in this area.
Dr. Kamilla Venner is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of New Mexico and research assistant professor at CASAA. Her research focuses on improving the alarming substance use related health disparities for American Indian/Alaska Natives while balancing the focus on cultural strengths, high rates of abstinence from substances, and stories of resolving alcohol problems. One avenue to improved outcomes has been to culturally adapt evidence-based treatments in partnership with AIAN communities. Cultural adaptations may include exploring cultural identity, spirituality, community, historical trauma, and traditional healing, as appropriate.
Learning Objectives:
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Participants will know the important balance of fidelity to the evidence-based treatment while culturally tailoring it to be more acceptable, appropriate, and culture positive.
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Participants will be able to name at least two of the six reasons to culturally tailor evidence-based treatments
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Participants will be able to identity at least two ways to culturally tailor evidence-based treatment for American Indian/Alaska Native people.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 2 - 3:30 p.m. Eastern
Redefining Responsible Gaming for Today's Gaming Industry
Panel:
- Cait DeBaun, Senior Director, Strategic Communications and Responsibility, American Gaming Association
- David Forman, Senior Director, Research, American Gaming Association
- Brianne Doura-Schawohl, Vice President, U.S. Policy and Strategic Development, EPIC Risk Management
- Alan Feldman, UNLV International Gaming Institute; Chairman, International Center for Responsible Gaming
- Kahil Philander, PhD, Assistant Professor Washington State University, School of Hospitality Business Management
Earlier this year, the Responsible Gambling Collaborative released new principles to define a path forward for responsible and problem gambling efforts in the United States. This webinar, during Responsible Gaming Education Week, will define the six effectiveness principles, provided analysis of state-level RG and PG funding, and include a panel discussion on the future of responsible gambling in the U.S.
Learning objectives:
- Define responsible gambling.
- Identify one finding from the study of where state-level responsible gambling and problem gambling funding goes.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2020 2 - 3:30 p.m. Eastern
Recognizing Stigma Embedded in Diagnostic Criteria for Substance Use Disorders
Speaker: Robert Krueger, PhD, University of Minnesota
Approaches to conceptualizing and classifying mental disorders are evolving in the wake of evidence for the limitations of traditional approaches. In this talk, I will review developments in this area of research, with an eye toward emerging approaches that have both scientific and clinical utility. I will also describe how an empirical approach can enhance our understanding of problems related to gambling.
Learning objectives:
- Describe key developments in empirical classification of psychopathology
- Explain the basis for the empirical approach to psychopathology classification
- Identify major spectrum concepts connected with an empirical approach to psychopathology, with a particular focus on gambling disorder
OCTOBER 21, 2020
Addictive Behavior Relapse: Challenges in the Treatment of Gambling Disorder and How Mindfulness May be Helpful in Breaking the Relapse Cycle
Katie Wittkiewitz, PhD, University of New Mexico
Learning objectives:
- Explain the theoretical and empirical foundations underlying a mindfulness-based approah to the treatment of gamb
- Describe the key practices, adapttations, and challenges of mindfulness practices in real world settings
- Learn the 3 minute breathing space as a specific skill that can be used with gambling clients and basic principles for conducting mindfulness-based interventions
