Gambling - RGT Press Release on Gaming Machine Research

The Responsible Gambling Trust has issued a press statement dealing with the next stage in research relating to gambling machines with the “highest stakes and prizes in Britain”.

The research is said to be intended to “inform policy decisions in relation to gambling machines in licensed betting offices”.

The second stage of the programme is said to include the following:

• Ground breaking research into both industry data and players to explore the way that people use machines in Licensed Betting Offices (LBOs) to identify behaviour that is potentially harmful;
• Cognitive and physiological studies to explore the impact of higher stakes and prizes and information provision on players' behaviour in LBOs;
• Geographical modelling to understand how ‘clustering’ or the locations of LBOs and the populations they serve may influence behaviour;
• Surveys of machine players to understand more about who plays machines in LBOs and to inform effective harm minimisation measures; and
• Evaluation of the Association of British Bookmakers’ new 'code of practice' to asses impacts on behaviour.

We will keep you updated as matters progress.

The full release can be seen here.