Remote Gambling [literature review]

The report "A Literature Review and Survey of Statistical Sources on Remote Gambling" (2006, October) was produced by RSe Consulting for the Department for Culture Media and Sport [U.K.]. Also available is the Appendix to the RSe Consulting report.

The stated purpose of the report on the DCMS web site is to "...inform the International Summit on Remote Gambling hosted by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 31 October 2006 at Ascot Racecourse."

Anyone else suprised at the relatively few references to scholarly, peer-reviewed research sources in the report... and the complete omission of the Internet Gambling Report?

Oregon Prevalence [report]

The prevalence of disordered gambling among adults in Oregon: A replication study (2006) indicates that, by in large, the prevalence rate of disordered gambling in Oregon is being kept in check... "This is most likely due to ongoing aggressive "play responsible" media efforts by the Lottery and the largest prevention and treatment system in the nation."

"The timing of this current study was driven by the fact that the State Lottery was adding line games to the existing video lottery terminals (VLTs) distributed throughout the state that were previously only offering video poker games."

See also the Oregon web page in the listing of U.S. gambling prevalence studies which is available from the Alberta Gaming Research Institute web site.

Canadian Gaming Business [print and online magazine]

The premier issue of Canadian Gaming Business (2006, July) recently appeared in my mailbox. The contents of this issue are also available for free online from the web site as a PDF file. It would appear that this magazine will be quite useful for gaming industry-watchers... kind of like a Canadian version of International Gaming & Wagering Business.

Canadian Gaming Business is published six times a year as a joint venture between MediaEdge Communications and The Canadian Gaming Association.

Addressing Gambling-Related Harm [conference announcement]

The Alberta Gaming Research Institute and the University of Calgary are co-sponsoring the sixth in a series of special interest conferences in the area of gambling research. Conference 2007 "Addressing Gambling-related Harm through Evidence-based Practices" will focus on innovations on the treatment of problem gambling. The conference will be held Friday, March 30 & Saturday, March 31, 2007 @ The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada. Also included is a poster session (submission deadline is Feb. 3, 2007).

EU Gambling Services [report]

The Final Report on the Study of Gambling Services in the EU Internal Market (2006) was produced by the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law for the European Commission. This extensive series of reports contains both legal and economic components.

Gaming Law Review, Volume 10, Number 5 (2006, October) has been published and is available online to subscribers. Original papers include:

• What Does DOJ Have Against the Interstate Horseracing Act?
• Placing Your Bets in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Online Gambling Touches the Virtual Role-Playing Worlds
• Gaming in Alabama: Futile Attempts to Put the Horse Back in the Barn
• The Regulation of Lotteries in Great Britain Following the Gambling Act 2005
• Implementing Great Britain's Gambling Act 2005: The Gambling Commission and the Casino Question

The Walrus and VLTs [magazine article]

The November 2006 issue of The Walrus magazine contains a well-researched article entitled "Alberta's Gambling with Gambling"*** by Andrew Nikiforuk. It discusses VLTs in Alberta and former civil servant Raymond Reshke's addiction to them.

*** Unless you have a subscription or sign up for a free one-month web site pass, you'll only be able to read the introductory sections of the article online.

Luck of the Draw [television]

CBC-TV's The Fifth Estate will be broadcasting a documentary entitled "Luck of the Draw" on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 @ 9PM.

It's a gamble that most of us have taken at one point or another: bought a ticket at a corner store and hoped that when those little white balls stop spinning we will be the newest lottery winner. Most of us remain disappointed in the results. But what if you did win the lottery? And what if you never found out?A fifth estate investigation has uncovered new statistics about how often clerks or retailers are winning. A prominent statistician talks about the chances of this happening as often as it does. The results may astonish you.

One Copy of Book "Gambling With the Future" to Give Away [contest closed]

I've got an extra copy of Yale Belanger's new book "Gambling with the Future: The Evolution of Aboriginal Gaming in Canada" (2006)... and here's how you can get it:

1) Take a look at pages 29-31 of the Alberta Gaming Research Institute's 2005-2006 Annual Report which was just released today and correctly identify the one person in the group picture (p.29) who isn't actually an official Board Member.

2) Either email me @ rhys.stevens@uleth.ca or leave a comment on this blog (just not anonymously) with your answer... I'll close the contest after the first correct response.

******* We have a winner -- Congratulations Steve Christensen! **********

Fraud Survey 2004 [report]

The 2004 KPMG Fraud Survey provides a comprehensive insight into contemporary
fraud issues in Australia and New Zealand. The findings in the report were derived from responses to a questionnaire sent in June 2004 to 2,164 of Australia’s and New Zealand’s largest
organisations across public and private sectors. The questionnaire sought information about fraud incidents within the respondents’ business operations.

According to the report, the second most common motivators for committing fraud was gambling (p. 17). Gambling was also associated with an average loss per incident of over $495,000 (p. 18). The gambling venues associated with the highest losses were casinos.

Stanford Internet Addiction Study [news release]

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that potential markers of problematic Internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population. If you read the full news release "Internet addiction: Stanford study seeks to define whether it's a problem" (2006, October 17), you'll note many parallels with gambling prevalence studies and gambling addiction in general. For instance:

• "...strong drive to compulsively use the Internet to check e-mail, make blog entries or visit Web sites or chat rooms, is not unlike what sufferers of substance abuse or impulse-control disorders experience: a repetitive, intrusive and irresistible urge to perform an act that may be pleasurable in the moment but that can lead to significant problems on the personal and professional levels."
  
• "A 1999 Center for Internet Studies survey of 18,000 Internet users, however, did find that 5.7 percent of the sample met suggested criteria for 'compulsive' Internet use."
  
• "But he added that there is little consensus among clinicians on whether problematic Internet use is a distinct disorder or merely an expression of other psychopathologies, such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder."
  
• "While the numbers indicate that a subset of people might have a problem with Internet use, Aboujaoude stressed that it’s premature to say whether people in the sample actually have a clinical disorder."

The news release also notes that the full paper appears in the October issue of CNS Spectrums: The International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine.

The Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming, Macau [web site]

The Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming (ISCG) in Macau has recently launched its web site. Information about the ISCG was included in a message I recently received:

ISCG is a not-for-profit gaming research and development centre that opened in Macau in August 2003. The mission of ISCG is to build bridges between the theories and practices of gaming in Macau and across Asia. The ISCG website will have the most up-to-date news links on gaming across Asia. At present, it has more than 40 articles on gaming/gambling in Asian context (Macau in particular) that are written by professors at the institute/university. The website also has full information on seminars and conferences that are organized by the Institute. For those who are interested in the bachelor degree program in Gaming Management offers by the University of Macau, the website contains some useful information.

Ontario Seniors in Small and Rural Communities [report]

The lastest report available from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre (OPGRC) is entitled "The Meaning of Gambling among Ontario Seniors in Small and Rural Communities" (2006). Conclusions from the study included, among other things, that:

1) Many Ontario seniors participate in some form of gambling, with the most popular being the purchasing of lottery tickets, and;
2) The vast majority of seniors in this study did not appear to be at risk of problem gambling.

Gambling and NCAA Division II Athletes [journal article]

The article "A Study of Gambling Activity in a NCAA Division II Institution" appears in The Sport Journal, Volume 9, Number 4 (2006) which is a freely accessible e-journal.

The purpose of this study was to examine both the overall and the sports specific gambling activity among athletes and non-athletes enrolled in a Southern, regional National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II university.

Gaming Research & Review, October 2006 [print journal issue]

Volume 10 Issue 2 (October 2006) of the Gaming Research & Review Journal from UNLV is now available in print. Article content includes:

• Financial Competitiveness of Macau in Comparison with Other Gambling Destinations
  
• Toward Strategy Implementation Success: An Empirical Study of the Role of Senior-Level Leaders in the Nevada Gaming Industry
  
• Estimating the Indirect Gaming Contribution of Bingo Rooms
  
• Applicability of the Duplication of Purchase Law to Gaming
  
• An Analysis of Elderly Gamers' Trip Characteristics and Gambling Behavior: Comparing the Elderly with their Younger Counterparts
  
• BOOK REVIEW: Casino Industry in Asia Pacific: Development, Operation and Impact
  
• BOOK REVIEW: Indian Gaming & Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise
  

International Gambling Studies, November 2006 [journal]

Volume 6 Issue 2 (November 2006) of International Gambling Studies is now available online to subscribers. Article content includes:

• Optimal Betting in Casino Blackjack II: Back-Counting
  
• ‘How Much Do You Spend Gambling?’: Ambiguities in Questionnaire Items Assessing Expenditure
  
• Models for Multi-site Problem Gambling Clinical Trials
  
• Measuring Problem Gambling: Assessment of Three Prevalence Screens
  
• The Measurement of Adult Problem and Pathological Gambling
  
• Measuring Gambling Problems Among Adolescents: Current Status and Future Directions
  
• Gambling Among Pacific Mothers Living in New Zealand
  
• The Experience of Gambling and its Role in Problem Gambling
  
• Opposing the Lottery in the United States: Forces behind Individual Attitudes towards Legalisation in 1975
  
• Book Review -- Gambling Problems in Youth: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives
  
  

Gaming and Lottery Legislation in Norway [legal report]

The government of Norway has sumbitted "STATEMENT OF DEFENCE BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY" (2006, May) as its response to a challenge from theSurveillance Authority of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) . EFTA alleges that amendments to the Norwegian gaming and lottery legislation transferring the operation of slot machines from a market based concession regime to the public monopoly already regulating other major forms of gaming, has infringed free trade.

Included in the report is a great deal of information about gaming and lotteries in Norway. Also included are details of the various gambling prevalence studies that have been undertaken in that country... including one that was published by MMI Research in 2005 that used the CPGI.

U.S. Comorbidity Survey [Data]

The U.S. National Comorbidity Survey: Replication (NCS-R), 2001-2003 has made data from the survey available for download and secondary analysis. Included is data on pathological gambling.

The NCS-R was carried out in the homes of a nationally representative sample of respondents aged 18 years and older between February 2001 and April 2003. Part I included a core diagnostic assessment of all 9,282 respondents. Part II included questions about risk factors, consequences, other correlates, and additional disorders. The diagnostic instrument was a revised and expanded version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) known as the World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI).

Evaluation of Harm Minimization Measures [report]

The publication "Evaluation of Electronic Gaming Machine Harm Minimisation Measures in Victoria: Final Report" (2005, December) is interesting because its one of the few studies that assesses the effectiveness of gambling harm minimization measures in a particular jurisdiction.

The study involved an extensive literature review of interstate and international harm minimisation measures coupled with a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of these measures. This involved analysing data gathered from survey interviews and postal questionnaires from electronic gaming machine users and people working at gaming venues.

Current and Future Australian Gambling Research [status report]

The Australian Gaming Council has a useful document on their website that provides "An overview of current and future gambling research undertaken in Australia" (2006, September 25).

Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada [reports]

We're in the middle of Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada (October 1-7, 2006). Two related reports include:

• The Human Face of Mental Health and Mental Illness in Canada (2006)-- See Chapter 9. Problem Gambling
  
• OUT OF THE SHADOWS AT LAST: Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada (2006, May)

Nova Scotia Youth Gambling Attitudes [report]

The Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation now has a revamped web site and a new web addresss. Also new on the site is a research report entitled "Decoding Risk: Gambling Attitudes and Behaviours Amongst Youth in Nova Scotia" (2006, September 27).

Growth of Gambling and Prediction Markets [call for papers]

Economica has issued a call for papers for a special issue on "The Growth of Gambling and Prediction Markets: Economic and Financial Implications." Deadline for submission is February 15, 2007.

Effects of Medication and Cognitive Behaviour [research report]

A new report is available from the web site of the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre. It's entitled "Effects of Medication and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Alone and In Combination, On Pathological Gambling" (2006, August) and was authored by A. Ravindran and J. Telner from the U. of Ottawa.

Journal of Gambling Studies, September 2006 [new issue]

The Journal of Gambling Studies, Volume 22, Number 3 (September 2006) is now available to subscribers and it contains the following articles:

• Pre/Early Adolescent Onset of Gambling and Psychosocial Problems in Treatment-Seeking Pathological Gamblers
  
• Epidemiological Associations between Gambling Behavior, Substance Use & Mood and Anxiety Disorders
  
• Flow and Dissociation: Examination of Mean Levels, Cross-links, and Links to Emotional Well-Being across Sports and Recreational and Pathological Gambling
  
• The Influence of Religiosity on Gambling Participation
  
• A Comment on the Utility of Prevalence Estimates of Pathological Gambling
  
• A Psychometric Evaluation of the DSM-IV Pathological Gambling Diagnostic Criteria
  
• Divergent Validity of Measures of Cognitive Distortions, Impulsivity, and Time Perspective in Pathological Gambling

First Nations Gaming in Canada [new book]

The book "Gambling with the Future: The Evolution of Aboriginal Gaming in Canada" by Dr. Yale D. Belanger is now available for purchase from Purich Publishing. As there's currently few items related to First Nations gambling in Canada, it would appear that this work will be a much-needed and welcome resource.