GambleAware offers £250k grant for research into effects of female gambling harm

GambleAware is providing a grant for £250,000 to a consortium that will examine the harmful effects of gambling specifically on women’s lives.

The grant will be used over 18 months by a group consisting of IFF Research, University of Bristol and GamCare Women’s Programme to look into real life experiences of women in terms of gambling problems.

The support body is committed to collating data that reflects the diversity of negative issues from gambling. Its aim is to highlight how different groups face gambling harm and, in the case of the grant, the focus is on women and their actual experiences of potential harm from problem gambling. Research will look at women’s problems as gamblers and/or as “affected others”.      

GambleAware implements a grant award procedure and in this instance the beneficiaries are the members of the consortium that will study gambling problems from a female standpoint. The study will be part of their Organisational Strategy to eliminate gambling harm from the wider society.

Specifically, the upcoming study will examine the reality of gambling harm for women, identify why gambling causes harm to females in Great Britain and look at the current services and policies that could potentially reduce harm. The gendered approach is something different in addressing issues of this nature through interviews and committees.

Other organisations within the sector were in competition for the grant. However, the team led by Kelsey Beninger, director of IFF Research, were awarded the grant. The bid was made in collaboration with Maria Fannin, Professor of Human Geography and Sharon Collard, Professor of Personal Finance at the University of Bristol. The consortium also included Dominique Webb, head of programmes at GamCare and her colleague Marina Smith.

GambleAware has funding of over £56m, some of which has been used to create a National Gambling Treatment Service.  However, Alison Clare, research director with the organisation, believes women’s problems in isolation have not received adequate research.

She said: “We are pleased to have awarded this grant to this strong multi-agency, multi-disciplinary team which will be drilling down into the experiences and needs of different communities of women.

“This is an important step towards ensuring GambleAware and others are commissioning the range of treatment and support services women want and will use.”

At the time of writing, GambleAware had not issued dates for any research but the £250,000 budget has been secured for the study.