Welcome to our Gambling Service's research and innovation news page.
You can find a range of brief articles about the work we have been involved with below.
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In 2023, the UK Government released a new White Paper called "High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age". A White Paper is a position paper that sets out the Government intentions about future legislation. Members of the SGS joined forces with Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones (National NHS Specialty Advisor for Gambling Disorder) to publish a peer-reviewed article in response. In it, we discuss welcome aspects of the proposals, but also to highlight key steps that need to be taken to help ensure the legislation is robust and leads to genuine reductions in gambling-related harms."
You can read the original Government white paper - High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age - here: High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
You can read the peer reviewed response to the paper, which our Gambling Service contributed to, here: The UK Gambling White Paper: comments on implementation and timing - ScienceDirect
The International Society of Addiction Medicine (ISAM) is an organisation that includes healthcare professionals from 93 countries. At the 2023 ISAM Conference in Marrakesh (Morocco), Dr Konstantinos Ioannidis from our Gambling Service presented key findings on medication treatment of gambling disorder. His talk considered how medication can help with reducing impulsivity - a term that describes when people find it hard to resist urges. The symposium focused on brain processes that contribute to behavioural addictions, and also included researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and the University of Cambridge (UK).
The NIHR (National Institute for Health and Social Care Research) kindly funded a pilot project so that SGS could work together with the Independent Charity GamFam. The pilot study involved developing a care pathway so that affected others could receive peer-based support for gambling related harms. Professor Sam Chamberlain from SGS presented the findings at an NIHR community event in Southampton in September 2024, and was interviewed by the NIHR as part of this event.
Feedback from people affected by gambling harms, who took part in the pilot study, was very positive. We hope that it will be possible to apply for future funding so we can scale up the excellent work that GamFam is doing, in partnership with SGS.
Please see video with Prof Chamberlain on the link below:
Funding information and acknowledgements: SGS would like to thank GamFam and the participants in the pilot study. This project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) ring-fenced funding for working with communities under-served by research. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.The Southern Gambling Service would like to thank the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for recording this video and giving us kind permission to include clips from it on our website. You can find out more information about NIHR via www.nihr.ac.uk