New Bristol gambling help centre aims to improve treatment 

The new Gambling Harms Research Centre (GHRC) has opened at the University of Bristol with a remit to explore the impact of gambling on the public. This new centre comes after GambleAware announced that gambling had returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 1.4 million individuals suffering from the detrimental impacts of gambling. The institution will combine research from six different facilities that span a variety of topics such as personal finance, psychology and human geography. The GHRC will collaborate closely with other local institutions such as the Bristol Digital Futures Institute, Bristol Poverty Institute and Bristol Population Health Science Institute. Zoë Osmond, GambleAware chief executive, has called the new Bristol hub a “major step forward”. “We are incredibly excited by the long-term benefits that this work will bring by driving new public health approaches to reduce gambling harms for a wide range of communities,” Osmond said. The charity has asserted that the recent cost-of-living crisis has been a massive contributing factor to people gambling more, potentially putting them at risk of gambling harm. Agnes Nairn, the centre’s co-director, said: “I think the fact that over 50,000 children aged 11 to 16 are in gambling rehab pretty much says it all. “I think the advent of social media had a big impact on the sheer volume of gambling that there is and the directed advertising that comes straight to someone. “If you are someone who’s got issues with gambling, you are more likely to see more adverts.” Nairn added. The opening of this centre comes not long after GambleAware called for a mandatory 1% levy to be imposed on the gambling industry to prevent a gambling harm crisis. All of this comes in the run-up to the much-anticipated release of the government’s white paper review of the Gambling Act 2005.