LeoVegas has reiterated that “responsible gaming is an important priority” for the group after striking a four-year research project in partnership with Stockholm’s Karolinska Institutet Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
This will look to improve the understanding of how to identify signs of problem gambling and, ultimately, prevent it, with the gambling group to provide funding and raw data to a research team that will begin the project in autumn 2022.
Gustaf Hagman, CEO of LeoVegas Group, commented: “Responsible gaming is an important priority for LeoVegas Group. We believe that our industry must take greater responsibility for contributing knowledge and facts about gambling-related problems, and learning how to minimise these issues.
“We are proud to be partnering with Karolinska Institutet to carry out this valuable research and hope that decision-makers and the igaming industry will be able to apply the findings in order to support more responsible gambling.’’
The joint research project will aim to increase the understanding of gambling problems and improve methods for identifying and preventing them by studying LeoVegas’ customer data.
Philip Lindner, an associate professor and leader of the university’s research unit with expertise in clinical and applied research in digital psychiatry, will form the lead.
The university’s research unit aims to develop, evaluate, and implement new tools for mapping and treating mental illness.
“As researchers at universities, we have a duty to spread knowledge that is useful to society. This collaboration gives us a unique opportunity to study data that hasn’t previously been available for research,” Lindner stated.
“We hope that the collaboration will lead to new ways of identifying and helping players at risk, at the earliest possible stage.”
The joint project is being funded by LeoVegas and is part of the company’s efforts to inform the debate about responsible gaming by providing research to support evidence-based discussions that it hopes will bring about a reduction in the harmful effects of gambling.