The New South Wales (NSW) Office of Responsible Gambling has increased its involvement and commitments to gambling-related research after releasing the details for new academic research grants which will assist in building the capability in gambling research.
Despite can be obvious that gambling is the common activity in Australia, the statistics and numbers change constantly, this happens due to the fact that new games, opportunities, and providers pop up in the gambling market on a monthly basis. Consequently, decent research can come with the results leading to the answers of how to make the community and the general gambling more responsible activity.
New Grants For The Research
The very important thing is to have proper motivation among the citizens to make the research regarding this subject. Providing research with the grant could definitely come up as a solution. The funding, which will come on behalf of the Australian state’s Responsible Gambling Fund, will help support Ph.D. scholarships, post-doctorate and study grants. There are many students who can not afford to pay tuition fees for their universities, this will be one additional opportunity for them to obtain the scholarship and thereby assist the community.
It is hoped that the academic research grants will be used to improve the quality and impact of Australian gambling research in communities across the nation. It is also hoped that there will be more attention paid to this specific subject as well as it will evolve the interest of citizens to do qualitative research.
The Perfect Motivation
The Director of the Office of Responsible Gambling, Natalie Wright has stated that the grants will be a guaranteed bridge across the gap between the research, policy and service delivery to increase the influence of research on gambling harm prevention and minimization. She also expressed her hope that the grants and generally conducted research will raise awareness among the students regarding the harm of gambling and consequently achieve more progressive and better outcomes.
“We are committed to providing up-and-coming researchers with an opportunity to dedicate their careers to gambling studies and have a real impact in our community,” Wright explained. “Research is crucial because it provides the evidence base for responsible gambling policy, interventions, and programs, and it is important to encourage our brightest minds to stay in or move into the gambling research field.
“We encourage collaborative partnerships, cross-disciplinary approaches, and applications from a diverse range of disciplines, to build knowledge and develop innovative approaches to working towards zero-gambling harm.”
The research will not only benefit the authorities and the responsible gambling workers but will raise awareness regarding the real statistics and the real harm which the activity can cause to society.
Measure In Place
The submission for the Ph.D. scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships has already opened the previous week and will last until the 31st of January 2020. While this initiative can be very much efficient, this is not the first step taken by the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling in order to assist popularization of the responsible gambling among society. Earlier this year the office has taken a number of steps and investors over AU$1.3 million into player protection measure.
The initiative also includes the launch of the new law in cooperation with the University of Sydney Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic. The law aims at creating a new platform, a website where users can register and self-exclude from gambling venues all across the state for a specific period of time or even permanently. The legislation is still to be implemented, though for now, most of the responses have been positive.
It is very much possible to make gambling harmless and entertaining activity for people, though it needs a lot of work, contribution, and research to be done. In order to come up with the solutions addressing the problem existing nowadays.