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Professor: ‘… we realized that more direct efforts were needed in the collegiate gambling space’
A new Center on Collegiate Gambling at the University of Mississippi will conduct research on the growing problems with sports betting among young adults, the public institution announced last week.
The center, which the university’s Board of Trustees approved in February, will be “the first of its kind in the nation,” according to an Ole Miss news release.
In addition to research on sports and online gambling, the center also will develop policies and programs to prevent students from developing gambling additions and services for those who already have, according to the release.
“Around two years ago, we invited an expert on gambling to come speak to us and after his presentation, I became very alarmed,” social work Professor Daniel Durkin stated in the release. “We were seeing a developing gambling problem, and not a whole lot of people were actually doing anything about it.”
The idea for the center came about as a result of that talk. It started with Durkin and several other professors creating a task force to explore gambling addictions and attending conferences focused on the problem, according to the release.
“… we realized that more direct efforts were needed in the collegiate gambling space,” Durkin stated.
Mississippi Today reports more:
The center was approved by the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees in February and will cost about $700,000 a year. It was conceived to study the “heightened risks” for college students and student athletes caused by the rapid growth of legalized sports betting and online gambling, its founders said. Researchers said the center will now begin hiring staff.
IHL’s approval of the center follows the release of survey results by University of Mississippi researchers showing that 39% of Mississippi college students gambled in a variety of formats in the past year. Of those who engaged in sports betting, 6% of Mississippi college students met criteria for problem gambling as defined by the American Psychiatric Association.
“We really think that this is an issue that affects Mississippi at large,” Hannah Allen-King, executive director of the university’s William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing and assistant professor of public health, said in a news release. “And so, we’re trying to work with our legislators as they debate policy change around gambling in the state.”
The center also will train counselors to screen students for gambling addictions and to offer support services to help them overcome their addictions, according to the university.
Additionally, it plans to host an annual conference to share its research, as well as a “Collegiate Gambling Awareness Week” to raise awareness, the university stated.
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