The Centre of Excellence in Responsible Gaming (CERG) is organising the 25th Conference of the European Association of Substance Abuse Research (EASAR) in May this year. This annual scientific conference aims to stimulate and strengthen European co-operation in research on the prevention and treatment of addiction behaviour.

This year’s scientific event will have over 60 researchers from more than 15 countries participating, and for the first time, it has been decided to open up part of the conference to the public.

CERG would like to invite you to the first of this two part public lecture series, which will focus on problem gambling. The majority of adults engage in some form of gambling during their life, which is a non-problematic leisure activity in most cases. However, for a minority of individuals gambling could become problematic (even pathological), negatively affecting everyday life of those who suffer from it and their families. Exploring the underlying factors and determining what makes certain individuals more at risk is of paramount importance in developing effective tools and services to prevent and treat gambling related problems. These lectures will present research findings about factors associated with gambling, and the potential consequences of problem gambling.

Susana Jiménez-Murcia (Department of Psychiatry, Bellvitge University Hospital, Barcelona)

Gambling Disorder (GD) has a complex multifactorial etiology with the interaction between biological (genetic, neuroendocrine, neuropsychological…) and environmental (psychosocial, educational, cultural…) factors. Its study, in association with the clinical characteristics of the disorder allows for a better understanding of the disorder and enables the development of diagnostic, prevention and treatment tools based on potential therapeutic targets. This lecture will present findings from a study that used a comprehensive battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests to assess a clinical sample of Gambling Disorder patients, aiming to identify different subtypes of such patients.

Susana Jiménez-Murcia, Specialist in Clinical Psychology, has been the director of the Pathological Gambling and Behavioral Addictions Unit at the Department of Psychiatry (University Hospital Bellvitge-HUB/IDIBELL) since 2002. She is the Co-PI of Group CIBERobn (Excellent Spanish Research Network for Obesity and Nutrition) and Associate Professor since 2006 of the School of Medicine at the University of Barcelona.

Natália Kocsel (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary)

This lecture will present findings that suggest rumination i.e..: the tendency to focus repetitively on negative aspects of oneself and dysphoric mood states that relate to past events and failures, may induce maladaptive behaviours, including problematic gambling, that provide an escape from these disturbing thoughts. Considering that rumination is often associated with impulsive responses to negative emotional states, it is paramount to map out how impulsivity could modify the association between rumination and problematic gambling.

Natália Kocsel is an assistant professor of psychology at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Addiction, Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. She received her MA degree in psychology (2014) and her PhD (2020) in clinical and health psychology at the same university. Her research examines how individual differences in emotion regulation shape subjective well-being and somatic complaints throughout adolescence and adulthood.

Joakim Hellumbråten Kristensen (University of Bergen, Norway)

For some individuals who experience difficulties controlling their gambling behaviour, accumulated gambling-related distress may be of such magnitude that it causes the individual to contemplate or commit suicide. Problem gambling and suicide are both major public health concerns placing a severe burden on the individual, those close to the individual, and society. Although the link between problem gambling and suicidality is well recognized in the literature, studies have been inconsistent regarding the magnitude of this relationship. This presentation will give an overview of the evidence concerning the relationship between problem gambling and suicidality, and present preliminary findings from an ongoing meta-analytic review of the field.

Joakim Hellumbråten Kristensen holds a master’s degree in Social- and Cognitive psychology from the University of Bergen, Norway. He currently works as a PhD candidate at the Department of psychosocial science at the same university of which he is affiliated with the Addiction research group and the Norwegian Competence Center for Gambling and Gaming Research. Kristensen’s main research areas are within behavioural addiction, with an emphasis on problem gambling and problem video gaming research. His doctoral work concerns the relationship between problem gambling and suicidality.