Public health experts have criticised the University of Sydney for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the world’s biggest gambling companies and casinos, which are bankrolling a new research centre that will examine their conduct.
But the researchers and the university believe the partnership will produce more useful research that limits consumer harm, and one of the gambling companies involved has warned against “emotional rhetoric” from critics.
The Centre of Excellence in Gambling Research was launched this week after a $600,000 funding commitment from the International Center for Responsible Gaming (ICRG), which the university has described as “a global leader in research and education on gambling disorder and responsible gambling”.
The ICRG’s major funders include MGM Resorts International, Caesars Foundation, Bally’s Corporation, Sands Inc, Wynn Resorts, Boyd Gaming Corporation, DraftKings, FanDuel, poker machine company IGT and many other entities. Its board of directors includes executives from US-based casino resorts.
The university has disclosed the centre’s research will also be supported by Australian wagering giant Sportsbet, which is owned by Dublin-based company Flutter, and Entain, which runs the Ladbrokes and Neds brands in Australia. The value of that support was not disclosed.
The university has been upfront about its links to the gambling industry and the centre’s leader, Prof Sally Gainsbury, said gambling companies would not be given any opportunity to “constrain or edit the research in any way”.
“This partnership is unprecedented and will allow us to translate research findings into effective real world, evidence-informed strategies to prevent and reduce gambling-related harms,” Gainsbury told Guardian Australia.
“Having access to major gambling operators is essential as it means we can conduct live trials and test the efficacy of interventions designed to encourage positive behavioural change,” she said.
“Our collaboration means gambling operators will share de-identified data on gambling behaviours and allow us to evaluate new interventions. Being able to create a dataset with a high level of detail on gamblers will be of immense value and has not been done before. This is a significant development in gambling research.”
But Associate Prof Sean Cowlishaw, a public health expert at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University, remained concerned about the partnership and said the funding arrangement was “clearly opposed” to a recent parliamentary committee’s recommendations.
The online gambling inquiry report, released in June, called on the federal government to help “protect public policy and research from gambling industry interference”.
“The decision of the University of Sydney to establish an industry-funded research centre is clearly opposed to this idea,” Cowlishaw said. “It’s troubling in part because it normalises the relationship with research institutions and the gambling industry.
“It’s quite unprecedented for such a prestigious academic institution in Australia to formalise this sort of funding relationship with gambling industry groups and to frame this as some form of centre for excellence.”
The chief advocate of the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Tim Costello, who discussed reforms with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last week, called on the university to hand back the money and said the partnership was inappropriate.
“For [gambling companies] to bolster and window-dress their social licence by trumpeting the Sydney university association hurts all Australians,” Costello said.
An Entain Australia spokesperson said the company favoured “evidence-based decision making” and was “happy to contribute towards any program that delivers thorough and unbiased research”.
“There has been a tendency for discussions around the impacts of gambling harm to be led by speculation and emotional rhetoric which can fuel a misguided or incorrect perception,” the spokesperson said.
A Sportsbet spokesperson said the company’s “financial support for projects with the University of Sydney does not affect their integrity or influence any outcomes”.
Prof Samantha Thomas, a public health academic specialising in gambling at Deakin University, was also concerned about the centre’s links to the gambling industry.
“Industry funding of research legitimises and normalises the gambling industry’s role in providing solutions to the problems they have caused,” Thomas said.
Associate Prof Charles Livingstone, a Monash University gambling expert, described the sponsorship deal as “scandalous”.
“I think that for a leading Australian university to be taking this sort of money, or indeed any money from the gambling industry, really raises questions about the judgment,” Livingstone said.
A university spokesperson said research integrity was “essential to our success and reputation and we adhere to a strict policy of academic research integrity, with research oversight by our ethics office”.
