Gambling Research Capacity Grants

These grants aim to improve the quality, diversity and impact of Australian gambling research by supporting talented and committed researchers. Funded projects addressed at least one of the following research priorities from the Office’s Strategic Plan 2024-27:

• Understanding and tracking changes in gambling behaviour and attitudes across the population and in specific groups
• Understanding and monitoring emerging technologies and trends, and their impacts on people and communities in NSW
• Understanding issues affecting different groups and communities across NSW, particularly vulnerable populations, and how to respond to these issues.

In 2025, we awarded two PhD scholarships and one post-doctoral fellowship.

Meet the new Gambling Research Capacity Grant recipients

Post-doctoral fellowship recipient

University of Sydney

Evaluating mandatory carded play and gambling harm-reduction tools in NSW

This project will evaluate the effectiveness of harm-reduction policies in NSW casinos. Using objective customer account data, it will analyse gambling behaviour before and after policy changes and across states, generating world-leading evidence. Findings will inform regulatory and industry efforts to reduce gambling harms and support policy reforms across casinos, clubs, and hotels in Australia and internationally.

Grant amount: $479,805

PhD scholarship recipients

Central Queensland University

Underlying traits in populations seeking treatment for substance-use and gambling

Few people who experience gambling harm access gambling-specific services, yet around 20% of people in alcohol and other drugs (AOD) treatment meet criteria for high-risk gambling. This project analyses 18,000 AOD intake records, incorporating the PGSI and standardised measures of impulsivity, trauma, anxiety, depression, and quality of life. It aims to identify substance-specific risk profiles and inform screening, intervention, and workforce training in AOD services.

Grant amount: $80,001

Australian National University

Cultural influences in gambling harm for people affected by another person's gambling

This research uses dataset analysis, interviews with service staff and people affected by another person’s gambling, and community co-design workshops to explore how gambling harm to ‘affected others’ manifests across different cultural contexts. The aim is to understand culturally-specific experiences and support needs and collaborate with communities to develop culturally responsive interventions for gambling harm.

Grant amount: $180,000

Meet the previous Gambling Research Capacity Grant recipients

Meet the previous post-doctoral fellowship recipient

Deakin University

Family member treatment for gambling harm: Development and evaluation

Family members affected by the gambling of others experience substantial harms yet are under- represented in the treatment system. This project developed and evaluated an online, self-directed intervention for family members (GAMBLINGLESS–FOR FAMILIES), with the aim of expanding low-intensity treatment options for family members.

Grant amount: $449,199

Meet the previous PhD Scholarship recipients

Monash University

Do "losses disguised as wins" in Australian pokies cause harm?

This project investigated a controversial feature of poker machine design feature known as losses disguised as wins. Methodologies from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience were used to consider how this feature contributed to pokies-related harm, with a view to informing gambling public health initiatives and Australian pokies regulation.

Grant amount: $44,000

The University of Sydney

Exploring the Harm Reduction Potential of Cashless Gambling Payment Systems for Electronic Gaming Machines.

Technology is rapidly changing the ways people make payments and spend money, but what impacts do digital payment methods have on gambling and gambling-related harm? This project investigated how we can help people to make smart choices about their gambling expenditure in the age of digital transactions.

Grant amount: $159,000

Central Queensland University

Wellbeing in those affected by problem gamblers.

The research investigated how significantly gambling-related harms influence a concerned significant other’s global wellbeing, and how these impacts may differ across different relationships to the problem gambler (e.g., partner, child, etc.), and across wellbeing domains (e.g., relational, health, etc.). Secondary data analysis and primary data collection were also undertaken.

Grant amount: $78,606

Queensland University of Technology

In it to win it: interdisciplinary investigation of sports betting.

The project aimed to better understand how young adults use, communicate about and experience smartphone sports betting applications. This was achieved through social practice theory and ethnography to examine how the use of sports betting apps is becoming established as an everyday social practice

Grant amount: $59,400

University of Adelaide

The effects of gambling advertisements on young people.

This project was concerned with studying the effects of gambling advertisements on young people's perceptions of gambling and their gambling-related decision making.

Grant amount: $165,000