GambleAware awards £250,000 grant for new research into women’s experience of gambling harms

GambleAware has awarded a grant worth £250,000 (€292,653) to a team of researchers who are now tasked with building evidence of the lived experiences of women in relation to gambling and gambling harms, both as gamblers and/or as ‘affected others’.

GambleAware is a commissioner of integrated prevention, education and treatment services on a national scale, with over £56 million (€65.6 million) of funding under active management

The grant was awarded through a competitive process to a team led by Kelsey Beninger, director at IFF Research in collaboration with Maria Fannin, professor of human geography, Sharon Collard, professor of personal finance at the University of Bristol, Dominique Webb, head of programmes and Marina Smith, women’s programme at GamCare.

The 18-month programme is taking a mixed-methods, multidisciplinary and multi-sector approach and will include roundtables, depth interviews and community committees with women with lived experience of gambling harms. The specific objectives of the programme are to:

• Explore the reality and lived experiences of women and their engagement with and experience of gambling, gambling harms, and gambling treatment and support services.
• Establish and explore the drivers of gambling harms amongst women in Great Britain.
• Explore the services, interventions, and policies needed to reduce and prevent gambling harms for women.

The research has been commissioned as part of GambleAware’s wider five-year Organisational Strategy, guided by an overarching vision of a society free from gambling harms.

Alison Clare, Research Director at GambleAware, said: “Women’s experiences of gambling harms are under-researched, often presented as homogenous and in terms of how they differ to men’s experiences

. 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.”

“GambleAware is committed to delivering a whole-system public health approach to gambling harms and understanding the wider determinants that drive these – including gender, health, race, ethnicity, and inequalities – is fundamental to achieving this.”