GVC to report on Harvard research progress at RG symposium

Ladbrokes Coral operator GVC will host a symposium at the British Academy in London today (12 November) on the research into safer gambling that it funds.

Professors Dr Debi LaPlante and Dr Sarah E. Nelson, from the Division on Addiction within Harvard Medical School’s Cambridge Health Alliance teaching hospital, will outline the Division’s safer gambling research at the symposium.

“It is only by taking an evidence-based approach to examining gambling that we can develop better strategies and tools to limit its potential to cause harm,” LaPlante said. “The collaboration with GVC that is at the heart of today’s symposium will play a significant role in advancing our knowledge about the issue of problem gambling and is warmly welcomed.”

The Division on Addiction’s research into safer gambling is based on GVC’s player data, as part of a $5.5m multi-year research partnership between GVC and the Cambridge Health Alliance.

“As part of our Changing for the Bettor strategy, we at GVC are determined to advance the understanding of problem gambling so that we can more successfully intervene to minimize harm to potentially vulnerable individuals,” GVC chief executive Kenny Alexander added.

“Our partnership with Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addiction is vital to this process and we are delighted to be hosting today’s symposium to bring together so many people who share our ambition.”

The research will cover areas such as safer gambling limits and the affordability of online gambling, patterns of normal internet gambling behaviour, behavioural markers of harm, the effectiveness of GVC’s safer gambling algorithms and evidence-based approaches to product safety.

In addition, the symposium will include a panel discussion on topics such as the effectiveness of responsible gambling intervention messaging, the impact of responsible gaming tools and detection of at-risk behaviours.

The panel will be chaired by Sarah Hanratty, chief executive of the Senet Group. It will also feature Paul Buck, chief executive of EPIC Risk Management, Anna Hemmings, chief executive of GamCare and Brigid Simmonds, chair of the Betting and Gaming Council.