The American Gaming Association announced Thursday that it has contributed $100,000 in its role as a founding donor to the National Center for Responsible Gaming’s new Fund to Support Research on Sports Wagering. The fund is the first in the nation dedicated to studying the impact of sports wagering on American bettors since the Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports betting in May 2018.
“The American Gaming Association is pleased to be a founding donor of this important endeavor,” AGA CEO Bill Miller said in a statement. “The expansion of legal, regulated sports betting has made it increasingly important that responsible gaming is not only a signature priority in new gaming markets, but that we also continue to deepen our understanding of effective responsible gaming practices.”
Research supported by NCRG’s fund will equip operators, policymakers and more than 4,000 regulators across the U.S., offering empirical, science-based evidence to assess and design gaming provisions and policies that protect consumers and prioritize responsible gaming above all else.
The creation of the fund will be discussed Thursday at a Get to Know Gaming event at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The event highlights the industry’s commitment to responsibility during Responsible Gaming Education Week.
Along with the AGA, MGM Resorts International is a founding donor of the fund. AGA members William Hill US, GVC Holdings PLC, IGT and Hard Rock International have also made significant contributions to the fund, in addition to NASCAR.
“The NCRG has long been a catalyst in the field of gaming research. This fund is especially significant because it will open up research in a previously understudied field in the United States – defining what we know about the effects of sports wagering for years to come,” said Dr. Russell Sanna, executive director for the National Center for Responsible Gaming. “With new opportunities for legal sports betting around the country, policymakers, practitioners, the entire industry, and the public will benefit from expanding our knowledge on this issue.”
In conjunction with RGEW, the AGA has also released a new version of Responsible Gaming: Regulations and Statutes. Updated to meet the needs of researchers, lawmakers and regulators, the latest version is a collection of the statutes and regulations addressing responsible gaming in the 28 states, plus the District of Columbia, with commercial casinos or sports betting regulations as of Aug. 31, 2019. It underscores the industry’s approach to addressing responsible gaming across hundreds of jurisdictions.
The report can be accessed here.
