In The National Interest: The Demise of The Gambling Research Panel

The National Interest, a radio program on Australia's Radio National had a feature on The Demise of the Gambling Research Panel. A full transcript which makes interesting reading is available here.

The program features interviews with Linda Hancock, the previous chair of the Gambling Research Panel here in Victoria and the Victorian Minister for Gaming, John Pandazopoulous.

Presenter, Terry Lane, does a good job dissecting some of the issues around the change in policy.

Interesting points are if they are going to go to an Ontario model of gambling. I doubt as Hancock suggests that they will move to the combination of commercial casino/charity casino/racino model as used by the OLGC in Ontario, nor would they move back into Government operation of gambling. What is more likely is that they move to a Responsible Gambling Council of Ontario (RGCO) model of the response to problem gambling where a well funded organisation coordinates research, health promotion etc. but is clearly gambling neutral.

The quality of research produced by the RGCO is excellent however the implementation of their recommendations and therefore the practical effect is questionable. This is of course out of their control as the provincial government as the licensor and licensee has complete control and as recent reports have stated will not be moving away from their dependence on gambling revenue.

It is interesting that Hancock suggests that there is a more interventionist approach required by the government in obtaining information from the gambling industry. This statement is true in that operators have a great deal of information that is useful for research purposes however researchers are not aware of what is available and operators make accessing information difficult. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by government and the new ministerial advisory committee.

Another issue is the movement away from Victorian-based research. State based research is important especially in the case of Victoria as the Victorian model is so different to other states (in terms of the duopoly, operation, inability of venues to own machines etc.) and this has had significant impacts on the consequences of gambling. We also need research like the community perceptions survey to collect the views of Victorians on gambling as this is what can clearly impact policy.

There is a role for national research but that does not mean that state-based research on specific state issues should be discarded.

I recommend that you read the transcript and let me know what you think.

GG