Stephanie Bramley is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. (690 words)

Unit researcher Stephanie Bramley attended the Society for the Study of Addiction Annual Conference on  7^th and 8^th November 2019 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.  During the conference Stephanie presented Unit research – Improving understanding of migrant gambling in the UK: Insights from three studies.

Day one of the conference covered a range of topics including the use of medical cannabis in the U.K.; the marketisation of addiction treatment provision; addiction and vulnerable populations; and for the first time a session about gambling addiction. Continue reading →

Stephanie Bramley is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. (982 words)

Unit researcher Stephanie Bramley attended the first Current Advances in Gambling Research 2019 conference on 12^th July which was held at the University of East London.  The conference was organised by Dr. Steve Sharman and was supported by the Society for the Study of Addiction.

Two keynote addresses were given, one by Prof. Marcantonio Spada and another by Prof. Gerda Reith.  There were also invited talks from eight academics with Dr. Henrietta Bowden-Jones OBE giving the opening and closing addresses.

Henrietta opened the conference with some exciting news as she is intending to develop a National Research Centre in Behavioural Addictions, so watch this space.  Following this Prof. Spada (London South Bank University) spoke about the role of metacognitive beliefs in predicting problem gambling. Prof. Spada put forward his view that metacognition was not addressed within cognitive behavioural therapy and that CBT relies on semantic change which could be a factor that leads to relapse, following research studies conducted about anxiety, depression and nicotine.  He called for more research with adolescents and relapse prevention in the U.K. following on from studies currently being conducted in Italy. Continue reading →

Stephanie Bramley is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. (801 words)

It is only the middle of March and the Unit has submitted responses to three consultations about gambling.

This month we submitted a response to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on gambling-related harm (Bramley, Manthorpe & Norrie, 2019a). This Group was previously the APPG on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and following the success that it had with reducing the stake on FOBTs from £100 to £2 per spin, the Group has decided to conduct an inquiry into the impacts of online gambling (Gambling-related harm APPG, no date). Continue reading →

Stephanie Bramley is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. (702 words)

Earlier this year I visited Las Vegas with two of my friends.  It was my first trip to Las Vegas and as a researcher who explores the impact of gambling for vulnerable people I was somewhat apprehensive about what I may see in Las Vegas.  However, the trip provided a good opportunity to explore gambling in ‘Sin City’.

The first thing that struck me was that gambling is synonymous with visiting hotels.  The majority of hotels in Las Vegas are ‘gaming hotels’ meaning that they have gambling facilities inside, typically a casino.  Indeed the casino is often central to hotel life – meaning that you often have to walk through a casino in order to visit any other part of the hotel.  For example, we stayed at the Paris Las Vegas whose check-in desks were situated off to the right-hand side of the casino floor. Furthermore, because of the location of the check-in desks it may be that children and young people may be exposed to gambling activities.  We did see a few families in the hotel who were visiting the hotel’s restaurants.  Although the official visitor statistics state that fewer children (classified as individuals under 21 years of age) visited Las Vegas in 2017 compared to 2016 (GLS Research, no date). Continue reading →

Researcher Stephanie Bramley from the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London attended the 2018 International Gambling Conference, held from 12 February to 14 February. This is the last of three posts from the conference. (306 words)

Day three of the International Gambling Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, began with an Asian welcome ahead of the forthcoming Chinese New Year celebrations.

Today’s keynote address was given by Prof. Samson Tse (University of Hong Kong).  Samson spoke about Chinese migrants’ gambling behaviour and suggested that loneliness (including feeling marginalised and restless) and the concept of ‘losing face’ (in relation to perceived status, privilege and pride) may be related to such behaviour.  Samson thought that there is a need for ‘disruptive innovations’ in order to ‘flip the iceberg’ and called for strong programmes to reduce stigma; treating the whole person; supporting family and affected others; and peer support interventions.  Samson encourage attendees to ‘act locally, think globally’ so as to address gambling-related harm. Continue reading →

Researcher Stephanie Bramley from the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London attended the 2018 International Gambling Conference held from 12 February to 14 February. This is the second of three posts Stephanie is filing from the conference. (326 words)

Day two of the International Gambling Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, began with a Pacific welcome from the Dominion Road Tongan Methodist Church Youth Group.  The group performed a song whose message was to ‘say no to gambling, yes to family’.

The day’s keynote address was given by Prof. Rebecca Cassidy (Goldsmiths, University of London). Rebecca shared research that she had conducted in London betting shops. She had trained as a cashier and worked in two betting shops for 6 months. During that time she heard about cases of violence, armed robbery and the potential dangers faced by betting shops staff who sometimes work alone. However, such incidents were rarely reported to police, and staff were often not offered any support or counselling. Continue reading →

Researcher Stephanie Bramley from the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at the Policy Institute at King’s College London attended the 2018 International Gambling Conference on Monday 12 February to Wednesday 14 February 2018. This is the first of three posts from the conference. (784 words)

This biennial event was held at the Auckland University of Technology and was an informative three-day conference, this year focusing on flipping the iceberg on gambling-related harm, mental health and co-existing issues. In this blog post I report on day one’s content.

Attendees were encouraged to “join the family” and embrace the notion of family during the conference. The conference was opened by Mana Whenua Matua Bob Hawke who gave us a Maori welcome before Paula Snowden, CEO of the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand, welcomed delegates. Continue reading →