Massachusetts Survey Examines Public Attitudes [Online Report]

The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling commissioned a "Statewide Survey to Measure Public Awareness and Attitudes Toward Gambling Disorders" (2005, Fall). The survey interviewed 600 individuals and was conducted by telephone in June, 2005.

Legal Aspects of Gaming [Conference]

On February 16th and 17th the conference "A Legal and Business Guide to Gaming in Canada" conference will be taking place at the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto. Billed as the "first-ever event to focus on gaming law in Canada."

Vietnamese Gamblers [Conference Papers]

Dr. Keis Ohtsuka, Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia has made available the following conference papers on Vietnamese gamblers from his personal web site:

1) Vietnamese Australian gamblers’ views on luck and winning: A preliminary report (2000).

2) The Vietnamese-language South Oaks Gambling Screen for the Australian context (2000).

White Sox and Black Sox [Newspaper Article]

With the Chicago White Sox professional baseball team on the verge of winning a World Series title for the first time in decades... Wall Street Journal reporter Stephan Fatsis has produced an excellent article that investigates some of the more recent discoveries relating to the Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. The scandal involved eight members of the Sox who allegedly conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series.

Fatsis is the author of a very interesting book titled "Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players."A must read for all Scrabble players!

Nordic Gambling Conference [Online Presentations]

The Nordic Seminar on Gambling and Gambling Dependence (2005, March) was held in Helsinki, Finland. Numerous conference presentations are available from the conference page in various languages -- including some in English.

Student Gambling in Manitoba [Online Report]

The Addictions Foundation of Manitoba has released the "Student Gamling Report, 2005" (2005, September). Among its many findings, it notes that almost 38% of adolescents in the sample reported gambling in the past year and that males were significantly more likely to gamble than females and gambling activity increases with age.

Alberta's Gaming "Royalties" [Magazine Article]

The article "The House Always Wins" from the September 2005 issue of Alberta Venture Magazine examines the phenomenal amount of revenue that is generated by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission. As an example, the author notes that, "[In 2004] the commission turned over $1.7 billion to its owner, the Alberta government, about $500 million more than the government garnered from crude oil royalties in the same year."

Historical Prediction Markets [Working Paper]

Wagering on political outcomes has a long tradition in the United States... between 1868 and 1940 there was a thriving market for betting on presidential elections. The working paper "Historical Prediction Markets: Wagering on Presidential Elections" (2003) by Rhode & Strumpf. Interesting, they note that, "The resulting betting odds proved remarkably prescient and almost always correctly predicted election outcomes well in advance, despite the absence of
scientific polls."

Series on Gambling New Mexico [Newspaper Feature]

Between January 2nd and 9th, 2005, the Albuquerque Journal produced an excellent eight-part series on gambling in the State of New Mexico called "The Big Bet". This is probably the single most comprehensive account I've seen in a newspaper... and conveniently reprinted / re-formatted as a 20-page PDF file!

CCSA Addiction News Daily [Online News]

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) has a useful web page called "Addiction News Daily" that periodically contains gambling-related items.

A couple items that I found from the past few days included information about the new web site of the Singapore National Council on Problem Gambling, and; 2) a Fall 2005 issue of Youth Gambling International from the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors [McGill University].

Gambling in Norway [Online Resources]

An article on the World Lottery Association web site entitled "Survey shows rise in problem gaming in Norway" (2005, October 5) provides information on problem gambling prevalence studies that have taken place in 2003 and 2005.

For some more in-depth information on gambling in Norway (as well as gambling research in general), the Norwegian Gambling Board report "Proposal for an Action Plan to prevent problem gambling and reduce the harmful effects of excessive gambling" (2004, December) is an excellent source of information.

Aboriginal Casinos: Who's Cashing In? [Public Presentation]

If you live in Southern Alberta, you may want to save the date of Friday, November 4th, 1-3PM. That's when the public presentation and panel discussion "Aboriginal Casinos: Who's Cashing In?" will take place in Anderson Hall Room 100 at the University of Lethbridge. Panelists will include Dr. Yale Belanger (U. of Lethbridge), Dr. Rob Williams (U. of Lethbridge), Delores Daychief (Community Member, Blood Reserve), and Chris Shade (Former Chief, Blood Tribe).

Chapman Law Review [Online Journal]

I knew it was available in print... but I only now came across a freely-accesible online version of the Chapman Law Review, Volume 5, Issue 1 (2002). This issue contains papers related to gaming that were presented at a "Gaming Law Symposium".

Indian Gaming Law [Resource Guide]

The Indian Gaming Law Pathfinder was put together by Native American Resources/Reference Law Librarian Faye Hadley at the University of Tulsa [Oklahoma] College of Law. Provides details of numerous books and other helpful resources for researching this topic.

Online Gambling [Magazine Article]

"Online Gambling Raises the Ante" (2005, October) is an interesting article from Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Lots of facts and figures about online betting exchanges and those that have founded them... from more of a financial perspective.

Eadington Worldwide Gambling Trends [Conference Presentation]

Noted gambling scholar Dr. William (Bill) Eadington has made available a presentation entitled Current Trends in Gambling Industries Worldwide (2005, September) that was presented at the NASPL conference in Minnesota. Other presentations from the conference are available from the NASPL conference web site.

Las Vegas History [Online Exhibit]

A Centennial Celebration of Gaming in Las Vegas is the name of an impressive online exhibit from the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It chronicles the history and development of Las Vegas gambling facilities through an assortment of images and supporting text.

Library Display of Gambling Resources [Online Images]

The University of Lethbridge Library (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) has an excellent collection of materials related to gambling. At present, there is a display of some of these resources. NOTE: The materials selected for the display have covers that are more colourful and aren't necessarily indicative of the content of the rest of the collection.

Critical Essays on Gambling Research [Online Report]

The publication "An Unconscionable Business: The ugly reality of electronic gambling" by James Doughney is subtitled "A selection of critical essays on gambling research, ethics and economics". Doughney is an Australian who authored the book The poker machine state: Dilemmas in ethics, economics & governance (2002).

Social Impact of a California Horse Racing Track [Online Report]

The report "Dixon Downs Horse Racetrack and Entertainment Center Project: Overview of Social and Cultural Issues" was put together by Economics Research Associates and presented to The City of Dixon, California. The interesting part of this report is the "interview" information that was obtained from other racetracks in the U.S.