Gambling research bankrolled by the gambling industry? That’s a problem

I’ve been overcome by déjà vu recently, reading the media coverage about the new Centre of Excellence in Gambling Research (CoEGR) at the University of Sydney, led by Professor Sally Gainsbury. 

CoEGR is bankrolled by the so-called International Centre for Responsible Gambling, self-described as funded by “generous” gaming companies. Such funding is not unprecedented at the University of Sydney, which many would not be aware has a strong track record of projects funded by the gaming industry. In relation to the CoEGR, the university argues it is “essential” to receive this funding because it enables access, “allowing researchers to conduct live trials and test the efficacy of interventions designed to encourage positive behavioural change”.

But what does “positive behavioural change” mean in practice? 

Back in 2001, the first research project I ever worked on was conducted by the School of Psychology’s Gambling Research Unit at the University of Sydney, which was established in the late 1990s. The premise of the study, titled “Proposed Changes to the Design of Electronic Gaming Machine Study”, evaluated the impact of proposed changes to the design of gaming machines on gambling behaviour.

The specific changes being tested were slowing the reel spin speed; reconfiguring bill accepts to permit only $5, $10 and $20 notes; and limiting the maximum bet to $1. These were deemed “harm minimisation” measures.

The study was led by Professor Alex Blaszczynski and received funding from the gaming industry. Machines in the study were modified by technicians from Aristocrat Leisure Technologies. (The billionaire founder of Aristocrat, Len Ainsworth, received a Member of the Order of Australia in 2018 for his “significant service to business and manufacturing”.)

As part of the study, over a number of weeks, research assistants like me visited venues across the city. I was assigned to the Fairfield area, which was — and still is — the top-ranked local government area where poker machines yield the highest profits in Australia. It is the most disadvantaged local government area in Sydney and has almost 4000 poker machines. The most recent publicly available data from Liquor and Gaming NSW about poker machine earnings from clubs and hotels reveals profits of more than $225 million for Fairfield. 

My data collection involved approaching bleary-eyed punters working the pokies.

“I just lost over $10,000,” said one man unprompted, his voice shaky, eyes shot with blood. It was still morning. 

The study researchers would go on to report that “two of the three proposed changes, reconfiguring bill acceptors and slowing the reel speed, would be of limited benefit in assisting problem gamblers”. As James Boyce wrote in The Monthly in 2019, it’s exactly such studies led by researchers from credible academic institutions that “underpin the poker machine industry’s purported social licence”.

The harm minimisation approach used to frame this kind of research assumes we will engage in harmful activities, seemingly against our own interests — like excessive alcohol consumption, injecting drugs or unsafe sex — and that cushioning the impact is the best solution on offer. 

More critically minded researchers and practitioners focus on the political and social determinants underpinning societal problems. However, other researchers, particularly in psychology, focus on “behavioural change”. This approach inevitably puts the onus on individuals rather than tackling more politically complex and challenging structural reform.

It’s been heartening to hear that MPs — largely independents — have been vocal in their concerns about the University of Sydney’s CoEGR: “institutional capture” (Zoe Daniel), “undiluted bullshit” (Andrew Wilkie), “utterly appalling” (Rebekha Sharkie). It brings to mind Senator Nick Xenophon, who in 2014 even went so far as to describe Blaszczynski as the gaming lobby’s “pin-up boy”. Blaszczynski, incidentally, supervised Professor Sally Gainsbury’s doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Sydney.

Another critic who comes to mind is former councillor Thang Ngo, who served the City of Fairfield from 1999-2008. During his tenure, he was vocal about the stranglehold of the pokies in the area.

“A lot of the victims are faceless,” he once told me when I asked him about that time in his life. “For example, there were restaurant owners who weren’t paying their bills on time because they went and gambled it all at night. We had real issues trying to get people to talk about it.”

Ngo acknowledged there have been “marginal improvements” over time. “But it just never quite eradicates the problem. They always have the upper hand, running sporting clubs and donating to political parties. They also give a lot to council projects like the Moon Festival as well as community groups. That’s the problem: money talks.”

The University of Sydney was once a pioneer with its ethical and uncompromising stance on research funding — in September 1982 its senate passed one of the world’s first policies disallowing staff to accept grants from tobacco companies. Yet for decades the university has been turning a blind eye to funding from the gaming industry, using its institutional credibility to legitimise compromised research, no matter how they might spin it.

Is there a rationality behind industry-funded gambling research? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.