The Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory in New Zealand has been awarded a $286,000 grant from the New Zealand Ministry of Health. The money will be spent on a research project that will gauge potential gambling harms for players across the country.
According to CQ Uni News, the research team from Central Queensland University will include: Dr Matthew Browne, Erika Langham and Associate Professor Matthew Rockloff. They will be working with researchers from the Auckland University of Technology to identify and assess potential gambling harms in New Zealand.
"We are paying special attention to the differing nature of harms as they occur to different sections of the community, such as Maori, who carry a disproportionate share of the burden of gambling harms," Dr Browne says. The study will take a look at the potential harms of gambling, whereas previous studies have usually focused on the existing prevalent of compulsive spending in the gambling market.
As such, the ultimate goal is to determine the underlying causes of problem gambling, so that the research team can get to the root of the issue. What is interesting about this study is that it will measure gambling harm in terms of years lost out of one’s life. Most studies measure gambling losses in terms of dollars and other economic quantities.
This will shine a new light on problem gambling across the country and how it affects residents’ lives. The researchers will base their work on three mechanisms of gambling harm: excessive time, money, and psychological investment in playing pokies and other casino games. It will also differentiate between the harm that is experienced by the gambler, the community and the individuals in the gambler’s life.
This is a very interesting approach to the study of problem gambling. We are eager to learn from the results of the study.
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