A topic of interest within the gambling industry is the question as to what extent research and services to tackle problem gambling should be funded by the industry. The topic is not new and has been debated for many years. It was highlighted in Bet Buddy’s and City University's research paper last year and more recently was brought to attention in Professor Jim Orford’s new book called An Unsafe Bet: The Dangerous Rise of Gambling and the Debate We Should Be Having.
Professor Orford states that government, service providers and academics are trapped in a consensus view about the benign nature of gambling expansion and are compromised in their ability to seriously challenge gambling expansion. Orford argues that the independence of the academic community is crucial in areas such as tobacco, alcohol and gambling, however he states that there’s a growing risk that gambling research is being co-opted to serve industry interests. Whilst some of the Orford's anti gambling expansion recommendations will not sit well with the industry (e.g.”UK based gambling internet sites should be made illegal”) it is a well written and researched book and provides an interesting overview of many issues within the industry.
There is no doubt that some conflicts of interest will always exist in collaborations between the gambling industry and academia. However does this mean that they shouldn't collaborate? The world is changing, and fast. As gambling continues to evolve along a steep technology gradient, new and innovative approaches to research are required to keep up with the pace of industry innovation. Whilst the rise of internet gambling offers exciting new opportunities for research it also requires more multidisciplinary experience and skills to effectively exploit these opportunities. For example, B2C and B2B operators are best placed to provide access to players and player data and to advise on the features and technicalities of the vast range of online games they develop. Specialist software analytics providers have the capability of taking player data and quickly identifying the sub-groups of players whose behaviour differentiates them from the norm. Academics in gambling and psychology are best placed to validate the research underpinning analytical models and the results from them. It is difficult to find one organisation that has all of this experience and capability under one roof.
So whilst a collaborative approach appears to make sense how does one overcome the conflicts of interest that exist? Whilst there is no easy solution, academics and the industry working in isolation will not result in fast progress. One of Orford’s recommendations is that 10% of industry profits should be directed towards problem gambling prevention and research. Whilst additional funds will no doubt help researchers, forcing the industry to support research in such a manner may not be conducive to building important industry relationships.
An alternative and approach could be for interested collaborators to develop frameworks with which to build partnerships. Such frameworks could include a series of principles that each collaborating party signs up to. For example, one principle could be that academics must be held ultimately accountable for the design of research project aims and for presenting results. Another could be that industry partners have sufficient consultation in the design of research proposals to enable them to fully apply their knowledge and expertise. All participating parties could be asked to fund their own efforts in any collaboration project independently. A more controversial principle could be that accountable academics are not allowed to commercialise the results of research that they were accountable for (although commercialising university research does happen).
As with the introduction of new technology, new research approaches would need to be actively tried to assess how effective they are, and either adapted (we are never 100% right first time) or rejected. There are now examples in the industry where such collaborations have shed new insight into gambling research that could not have been possible without collaboration. We at Bet Buddy are doing this too and will be presenting our research, undertaken in collaboration with both industry and academic partners, at the Responsible Gambling Council’s 2011 Discovery Conference. We need academics to keep innovating and advancing research and we need the industry to support them in doing this therefore we believe that despite challanges to making such collaborations work we will see more of them developing as the industry continues to grow and mature.
As with the introduction of new technology, new research approaches would need to be actively tried to assess how effective they are, and either adapted (we are never 100% right first time) or rejected. There are now examples in the industry where such collaborations have shed new insight into gambling research that could not have been possible without collaboration. We at Bet Buddy are doing this too and will be presenting our research, undertaken in collaboration with both industry and academic partners, at the Responsible Gambling Council’s 2011 Discovery Conference. We need academics to keep innovating and advancing research and we need the industry to support them in doing this therefore we believe that despite challanges to making such collaborations work we will see more of them developing as the industry continues to grow and mature.
