The gambling research organisation that gambling companies love – Sydney Morning Herald

ClubsNSW said in a written statement that it had no involvement in determining the content for the NAGS conference. It would appear that the program for this year has been finalised and has been publicly available online since 19 September 2022.

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The NAGS conference has lost credibility among public health researchers due to its ties with the gambling industry. But it continues to engage with government. Two of the panellists at the conference to be held at Sydneys Hilton Hotel in November are employed by the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling.

In 2014, keynote speaker Mike Daube, a public health researcher at Deakin University, expressed discomfort that the event was being held at Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast. He then questioned the independence of research that was funded by gambling interests.

If you win and accept funding from one of the reputable research funding bodies you are beholden to nobody, he said. By contrast, seeking and accepting gambling or tobacco or alcohol - funding essentially makes you part of their public relations and lobbying strategy to prevent serious action at the population level.

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Blaszczynski, who has published research funded by ClubsNSW, said nobody had ever found inaccuracies in his work or argued with his findings. The NAGS conference offered an exchange of ideas and it was counter-productive for public health academics to boycott it, he said. You end up in a situation where the converted are preaching to the converted and you have no divergent view.

But Monash University public health professor Charles Livingstone said the conference influenced the policy agenda in government because it normalised responsible gambling, an industry term used to push responsibility onto individuals for succumbing to an addictive product.

If you look at the gambling policy in Australia you will see that responsible gambling has long been the paradigm, Livingstone said. And NAGS is a very good place to legitimise responsible gambling as the dominant paradigm.

ClubsNSW drew on the concept of personal responsibility in its opposition to a cashless gambling card that was pitched by Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello before gaming was stripped from his portfolio last year. Dominello proposed a cashless gaming card to target money laundering and minimise gambling harms. ClubsNSW fiercely opposed a proposal for the card to be mandatory.

A trial for a digital wallet scheme launching on Saturday will link patrons mobile phones to 36 gaming machines at Wests Newcastle that have been installed with the technology. Patrons will be able to transfer money directly from the gaming wallet on their phone onto the machine through Bluetooth, and set playing time and expenditure limits.

The scheme will be voluntary.

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The gambling research organisation that gambling companies love - Sydney Morning Herald