responsible gaming

Gambling play management systems are preventative tools used to keep patrons within set budget limits.  PlayMyWay is the first used within a casino setting with the US, described as “innovative budgeting tool designed to allow customers the ability to monitor the amount of money they spend on electronic gaming machines, and to inform their decision to continue or stop play” (Tom et al., 2017).

The NCRG is excited to announce its participation in a newly convened Responsible Gaming Collaborative, made up of key stakeholders in the gambling industry and other sectors.  This collaboration includes the National Council on Problem Gambling, the National Center for Responsible Gaming, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas International Gaming Institute, Harvard University’s T.H.

The Division on Addiction at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Teaching Hospital of Harvard Medical School, is sponsoring Gambling Disorder Screening Day on Tuesday, March 13, 2018. This year’s Screening Day Toolkit has even more free resources to make hosting Screening Day easier than ever. Any provider or organization can host. Registration is not required to use these free resources.

A recently published article in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction & Research Theory provided a new model for evaluating responsible gambling research. To ensure its dissemination beyond academia, the NCRG produced a white paper summarizing the study’s findings. The white paper, Responsible Gambling: A Review of the Research, is available for download at www.ncrg.org (click on Resources and White Papers).

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.

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 has made it a priority to disseminate research findings on gambling disorder and responsible gaming beyond academia. We are especially committed to ensuring that credible scientific research informs gaming regulations designed to reduce gambling-related harms. Toward this goal, the NCRG has teamed up with the International Association of Gaming Advisors (IAGA) to present NCRG @ IAGA, a one-day conference scheduled for June 2, 2015, the day before IAGA’s International Gaming Summit begins at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver.

We know that increasing awareness on gambling disorders and responsible gaming is important to you. At the NCRG, it is important to us too, and we want to develop a plan to enhance our efforts.

As the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos take to the field on Sunday, millions of people from around the world will be tuning in to watch who wins Super Bowl XLVIII. Many people may even want to place a bet or two on the game’s outcome. We know that research shows that 1% of U.S. adults have been diagnosed with a gambling disorder, while 2-3% of the population has a gambling problem.

If you’re one of those who likes to wager on sports and can do so without problems,  you can establish your own limits and provide direction to others by developing a set of personal guidelines to determine whether, when and how much to gamble. Here are a few things to consider:

The NCRG’s Amy Kugler is at the New Horizons in Responsible Gambling conference in Vancouver, BC. This two-day event is designed to cover responsible gaming from an international prospective, bringing together members of the gaming industry, researchers and clinicians to discuss best practices for responsible gaming programs. Watch this video to learn the highlights of the first day of the conference and stay tuned to the NCRG on Twitter and Facebook for more.