International Gambling Conference 2018

This biennial conference will lead to a better understanding among stakeholders and a well-regulated gambling industry for the benefit of all. To attend the conference, please call Vee at Litha Communications on +27 (0)11 484-7663 or email: events1@lithacommunications.co.za. The gambling events 2018 offers a platform for professionals to present their products and services and for you to put yourself on the map by presenting yourself to the international gambling industry community.

Researcher Stephanie Bramley from the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London attended the 2018 International Gambling Conference held from 12 February to 14 February. This is the second of three posts Stephanie is filing from the conference. (326 words)

Researcher Stephanie Bramley from the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London attended the 2018 International Gambling Conference held from 12 February to 14 February. This is the second of three posts Stephanie is filing from the conference. The National Conference on Gambling Addiction & Responsible Gambling brings together local, national and international experts in responsible gambling and problem gambling. This is a unique opportunity to interact with and reach a diverse group of public health, prevention, treatment, advocacy, recovery, research, regulatory, and industry. The 2018 Gambling Harm Conference celebrated Aboriginal and First Nations cultures. The 2020 event will continue to explore how gambling harm affects Aboriginal communities.

International Gambling Conference 2018 Schedule

Day two of the International Gambling Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, began with a Pacific welcome from the Dominion Road Tongan Methodist Church Youth Group. The group performed a song whose message was to ‘say no to gambling, yes to family’.

The day’s keynote address was given by Prof. Rebecca Cassidy (Goldsmiths, University of London). Rebecca shared research that she had conducted in London betting shops. She had trained as a cashier and worked in two betting shops for 6 months. During that time she heard about cases of violence, armed robbery and the potential dangers faced by betting shops staff who sometimes work alone. However, such incidents were rarely reported to police, and staff were often not offered any support or counselling.

Rebecca is passionate about anthropology and conducting research where researchers can become immersed in a situation. She also raised the question of why gambling research should be independent from industry and recalled an incident where she felt that the industry ‘owned her research’ and she ‘could not say anything without first checking with the funders’. Rebecca advocated that participants involved in gambling research should be consulted and involved in the design of research studies, saying ‘people are not sources of data to be mined’. She also called for the industry to be required by regulators and licensing authorities to give meaningful access to venues and data.

Following this, the rest of the day focused on concurrent sessions of presentations. I went to six presentations, which covered themes such as the welfare cost of gambling; understanding the migrant journey of Asian students; the impact of gambling for people accessing social and accommodation support; understanding women’s gambling behaviour; the impact of gambling for single mothers and homeless women and the impact of gambling for Pacific people in New Zealand. All presentations had valuable insights which I will consider when Jill Manthorpe, Heather Wardle (LSHTM), Caroline Norrie and I begin our project studying migrant gambling in London and Leeds.

[Day three]

Stephanie Bramley is a researcher at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London. Learn more about her gambling study.

12 September 2018 - Conference day 2

You can download the presentations by clicking on the link

08.00 - 09.30 Welcome and official opening

• Graham White, chairman of the European Association for the Study of Gambling, the Netherlands
• Heathcliff Farrugia, CEO Malta Gaming Authority, Malta
• Silvio Schembri, Minister, Malta (Video Message)

09.30 - 11.00 What’s new? What position has the Industry? And the regulator?

Moderator: Graham White, chairman of the European Association for the study of Gambling, the Netherlands

• Graham White, chairman of the European Association for the Study of Gambling, the Netherlands
• Birgitte Sand, IAGR Trustee & Patron, Denmark

11.30 - 12.30 InBrief: What’s new in the research arena? Who has a Vision?

Moderator: Pieter Remmers, Assissa Consultancy Europe, the Netherlands

• Got game? Taking stock of 50 years of research in product-related risk and looking ahead beyond 2020
  Jonathan Parke, Sophro Ltd, United Kingdom
• Artificial Intelligence and gambling research: Progressing from tracking behaviour today to designing safety into the product in the future
  Christian Percy and Simo Dragicevic United Kingdom

13.45 - 15.25 Parallel Sessions

Session 1 - Responsible Gaming Strategy and Politics

• Beyond Reno II: Who cares for vulnerable gamblers?
  Gerhard Bühringer, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
• Considering co-occurring disorders in gambling disorder: Implications for prevention, treatment and responsible gambling
  Marc N. Potenza, Yale University, School of Medicine, USA
• Improving strategies in Responsible Gaming Programs: its complete implementation in the Province of Neuquén, Argentina
  Julio Ángel Brizuela and Propuesta Cia-Brizuela, APAL Section of Pathological
• The recent evolution of the Belgian gambling landscape
  Roland Louski, Loterie Nationale, Belgium
• Responsible Gambling Strategy Board - overview of research programme
  Tim Livesley, Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, United Kingdom

Session 2 - Focus on Research, Gambling and Harm

• A new instrument for measuring gambling participation
  Rachel Volberg, University of Massachusetts, USA
• A comparative analysis of Canadian University policies towards alcohol, drugs and gambling use
  Loredana Marchica, McGill University, Canada
• “It never rally ends” - A qualitative study of everyday life and living conditions in families of problem gamblers
  Trude Klevan, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway and Vibeke Krane, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway and Bente Weimand, Akerhus University Hospital, Norway
• The future need for harm minimisation and gambling counselling for the Arabic-speaking community in Sydney, Australia: An exploration of Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) from Australian Census 2016
  Keis Ohtsuka, Victoria University, Australia
• Advances in Quebec public health & gambling studies: naming harms, measuring impacts, targeting environments
  Elisabeth Papineau, Instituté national de santé publique du Québec, Canada

Session 3 - Regulators and Economics

• Ideas from Behavioural Economics for Responsible Gambling
  Douglas Walker, College of Charleston, USA
• Regulation of cross border gambling
  Václav Ulrich and Jan Řehola, Faculty of Law of Charles University, Czech Republic
• How should gambling machines be taxed?
  Leighton Vaughan Williams, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
• The Licenses of the Gaming Industry in Macao: Overview and Improvement
  Changbin Wang, Macao Polytechnic Institute, China

• Tax incidence of gambling: Evidence from the Finnish gambling market
  Tomi Roukka, National Institute for Health and Welfare/University of Turku, Finland

Session 4 - Automated Identification: Self-exclusion and what’s next? The industry involved

• Automated identification of possible problem behaviour in online gambling matching expert assessment
  Elisabeth Crone Linding, Danske Spil and Kim Mouridsen, Midway AI, Denmark
• Raising Standards in compliance: Can Artificial Intelligence help industry stay one step ahead of criminal spenders in online gambling?
  Simo Dragicevic, Playtech, United Kingdom
• The long-term effects of a real-time loss-limit reminder at Norsk Tipping
  Michael Auer, Neccton, Austria
• Responsible gambling in practice: a case study of views and practices of Swedish oriented gambling companies
  David Forsström, Department of Public Health Sciences, Sweden
• Collaborative Innovation Identifying good practice and inspiring change
  Jenny Holland, GambleAware, United Kingdom

Session 5 - (Preventing) Gambling Harm

• From the Slots to the Bottle: A Mixed-Method Study of Addiction Substitution among Recovered Gamblers
  Hyoun Kim, University of Calgary, Canada
• Gambling-related harm
  Alexander Blaszczynski, University of Sydney, Australia
• GAME-BLING: When gaming meets gambling
  Mina Hazar and Adela Colhon, YMCA of Greater Toronto, Canada

• 'The law itself doesn't change things'. The local prevention of gambling-related harms after the Act on organizing alcohol, tobacco, drugs and gambling prevention
  Jani Selin, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland

Session 6 - (Socio-)economic costs

• Gambling expenditure in Finland - who contributes the most to the profits of the gambling industry?
  Anne Salonen, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland
• Social costs of Gambling in Italy
  Fabio Lucchini, FeDerSerD (Italian Federation of Workers of the Addiction Departments and Services), Italy
• Venezuelan Socio-Economic crisis and its impact on Gambling
  César A. Sanchez Bello, Seccion Juego Patologico (APAL), Venezuela
• Is slot machine density highest in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas in Finland?
  Susanna Raisamo, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland

• Two Disasters and the Future of Las Vegas Gaming: Shootings at the Mandalay and the Fall of Steve Wynn
  William Thompson, University Nevada, USA

15.55 - 17.15 Parallel Sessions

International Gambling Conference 2018 Conference

Session 1 -State of the Art in the Practices of Responsible Gaming

• Experiences from proactive responsible gambling communication
  Judith Torstensson, Svenska Spel, Sweden
• Effects of wagering advertisements and inducements on betting behaviour
  Nerilee Hing, CQUniversity, Australia
• Bring Responsible Gaming to Retail
  Jesse Saccoccio, IGT, Italy
• The Relationship between Exclusions from Gambling Arcades and Accessibility: Evidence from a newly introduced exclusion program in Hesse, Germany
  Tanja Strohäker, University of Hohenheim, Germany

Session 2 - The Netherlands Gaming Authority

Seminar: The Tulips are Growing

Session 3 - Focus on Women

• Never too old, never old enough… Gambling-related problems among older adults: risk factors and experimental treatment with focus on Women
  Fulvia Prever, SUN(N)COOP & ALEA, Italy
• Identifying help-seeking behaviours among women gamblers: a cross-sectional population survey from Quebec, Canada
  Adѐle Morvannou, Concordia University, Canada
• Exploring experiences of violence amongst women with gambling disorder
  Fulvia Prever, SUN(N)COOP & ALEA, Italy
• Mixed model of care and gender differences
  Adele Duncan, Gordon Moody Association, United Kingdom

Session 4 - Treatment of Problem Gaming

• Developing an on online treatment program for problem gambling
  Nigel Turner, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada
• The impact of therapeutic contract and CBT treatment in gambling disorder: A pilot study
  Pedro Hubert, IAJ - Instituto Apoio Jagador, Portugal
• Problem gambling, craving and hypnosis
  Stephanie Lienard, Private practise / Addiction Treatment Center, France
• Pharmacological Treatment of Pathological Gambling with Oxcarbazepine (Trileptal)
  Viorel Lupu, Luliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj Napoca, Romania
• ORTHOS intensive residential treatment for pathological gamblers: Outcomes after 10 years of the experimental project
  Riccardo Zerbetto, Orthos, Italy

Session 5 - Gambling Regulations

• The Italian Gaming Machines and Gambling Regulated Market 15 years later: keynotes for further market implementation towards the players safety
  Emmanuele Cangianelli, MAG, Italy
• New Malta Gaming Regulatory Framework
  Olga Finkel, WH Partners, Malta
• Casino Anti-money laundering Rules and Procedures in Macao
  Carlos Siu Lam, Macao Polytechnic Institute, China
• Illegal online sports betting machines in the Netherlands
  Toine Spapens, Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Session 6 - What’s in games and Solutions?

• Merging game design features and player behaviour risk markers: What can we learn?
  Christian Percy, Playtech, United Kingdom
• Daily Fantasy Sports, Social Casino Games, and Ethnic Differences in Gambling Behaviours: Results from a State-wide Prevalence Study
  Lia Nower and Devin Mills, Rutgers University, USA
• In-play sports betting a scoping study
  Elizabeth A. Killick, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom

• The game of Kinzo: gamblers reported perceptions, paths and behaviours
  Serge Sevigny, Université Laval, Canada