EDITORIAL Ways in which gambling researchers receive funding from gambling industry sources

Transcription

1 International Gambling Studies Vol. 11, No. 2, August 2011, EDITORIAL Ways in which gambling researchers receive funding from gambling industry sources Peter J. Adams* School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (Received 6 May 2011; final version received 23 June 2011) There are many contexts in which we acknowledge that money can carry with it the stains of how it was acquired. For example, funds acquired from the sale of illicit drugs are referred to as dirty money and funds from smuggling weapons as blood money. In response to such negative associations, a broad range of money-laundering practices has evolved, that seeks to disguise or conceal links to the source of the funds. These practices include transfer through intermediaries (such as shell companies or respectable businesses) or covert transactions (such as secret bank accounts) (Reuter & Truman, 2004). The key goal of these practices is to hide the link while still maintaining some control over how the money is deployed. The management of profits from gambling and other addictive consumptions (such as alcohol and tobacco) differs from money laundering in that in most places the source is not illegal, only morally and ethically questionable (Adams, 2009; Livingstone & Woolley, 2007). Nonetheless, it still involves finding ways to reduce the stains or negative associations linked with the source. This is a challenge, particularly when one examines more closely the manner in which this money has been acquired. In the case of gambling, while the number of problem gamblers in any one population is relatively small (varying between 0.5% and 1.5%, Productivity Commission, 2010; Petry & Armentano, 1999), their gambling accounts for a sizeable percentage of the money expended: as much as 40% to 50% of profits from electronic gaming machines (EGMs) come from problem gamblers (Productivity Commission, 1999; Caraniche Pty Ltd, 2005). Unfortunately, it is never clear which portion of these profits is derived from recreational gamblers going out simply to have fun and which portion comes from heavy gamblers who are experiencing serious and debilitating problems. The two amounts are always mixed and this makes it impossible for those benefiting from the profits to shake off the exploitative associations of how they have been acquired. The alternative is to help beneficiaries feel more comfortable about the money by developing ways in which the stains of association are reduced, cleansed or sanitized. This editorial seeks to question the widespread practices whereby researchers obtain funds derived from gambling profits. It has perturbed me over the years to witness the extent to which it is acceptable for gambling researchers to accept funding from the profits * p.adams@auckland.ac.nz ISSN print/issn online q 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: /

2 146 Editorial of gambling. I had not witnessed such high permissibility in tobacco and alcohol research and, at first, I was genuinely stunned by the extent and frequency with which such funds were received. Key sights I observed included: leading international figures in the field comfortably accepting industry contributions; conferences sponsored primarily by industry sources; government agencies condoning and even encouraging industry links; and senior members of gambling corporations prominently represented on key committees. It was an alien world one in which I had trouble finding my bearings. The focus on research is warranted because researchers play a central role in generating the knowledge base that informs all layers of society about the impacts of gambling. For example, the quality of a magazine article on the ways in which problem gambling will affect a home can only be as informative as the availability and quality of the research that underpins its main points. Knowledge can only exist when knowledge generators are willing to focus their efforts on answering relevant questions, but since enquiry can proceed in many different directions, the very nature of that knowledge base can be shaped by influences that determine which questions are addressed, which are only partially embraced and which are shelved for later generations (Adams, 2008; Livingstone & Adams, 2011)). Moreover, one should not underestimate the disruptive potential of well-conducted research. Amply funded and high-quality research provides a critical information source upon which commentators and health lobbyists can influence the policy agenda, which they will, in turn, incorporate into their media and advocacy campaigns (Jahiel & Babor, 2007). Hence, those with a strong stake in the profits from gambling consumption which includes corporations, governments and community agencies are unlikely to support research activities that could threaten these profits. Direct transfer The first and historically most common practice involves gambling researchers or research institutions accepting funding directly from gambling industry sources. Examples abound and they vary from small one-off projects to large multiphased research programmes. Some examples include the Harvard Medical School affiliated Division of Addictions host responsibility evaluation with the Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LaPlante, Kleschinsky, LaBrie, & Shaffer, 2009); research on EGM modifications at the University of Sydney (Blaszczynski, Sharpe, Walker, Shannon, & Coughlan, 2005); Nottingham Trent University s development of a gambling assessment measure (GAM-GaRD) with the UK lottery company Camelot (Griffiths, Wood, & Parke, 2008); and the University of Macau s research into responsible gambling at its Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming (Pessanha, 2008). While the practice of receiving direct funding persists, in the whole field of addiction studies there are signs that direct transfer is becoming less acceptable. First, at a meeting in Farmington, Connecticut, in July 1997, the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE) was formed, which later developed the Farmington Consensus (ISAJE, 2005) that requires its members to maintain editorial independence through open declarations of conflicts of interest. This has led many addiction journals to insist, with increasing assertiveness, that authors provide detailed information on any potential conflicts associated with industry funding (Babor, Miller, & Edwards, 2010; Goozner et al., 2009; Hong & Bero, 2006). Second, academics involved in addiction research are speaking out more strongly and explicitly about the unacceptable nature of direct industry involvement (Kypri, Walsh, & Sanson-Fisher, 2009; Miller, Kypri, Chikritzhs, Skov, & Rubin, 2009; Miller & Kypri, 2009; Turcotte, 2003). Third, addiction researchers are more openly criticizing colleagues who engage persistently in direct industry relationships (Burch,

3 International Gambling Studies 147 Wander, & Collin, 2010; Munro, 2004). A key forum for identifying these linkages is the ongoing Vested Interests series in the journal Addiction (Bakke & Endal, 2010). Ethical sanitizing practices In response to these complications, direct transfer researchers are becoming less comfortable with receiving direct transfers and a range of practices have emerged that enable researchers to access these funds in more palatable forms. These practices serve the broad purpose of cleansing or sanitizing the money received of associations with how it was acquired. The following will briefly identify five of these sanitizing practices: structural decoupling; the tripartite partnership committee; the independent panel of experts; peer review; and blending of sources. Structural de-coupling The most common alternative for researchers receiving funding directly from industry sources is to receive it through intermediary bodies. The more distant the intermediary is from the industry source and the greater the number of transfers, the less likely it is that the funding will be perceived as tainted by its source. For example, in the United States a major industry source for gambling research undergoes a five-step transfer (Mishra, 2004). The profits are first acquired from gamblers by a broad range of operators (Transfer 1) who then choose to donate a small portion to an industry-operated agency, the National Centre for Responsible Gambling (Transfer 2). The money is handed over to the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders (Transfer 3) and this is then dispersed to several beneficiaries, the main recipient being the Division on Addictions at the Cambridge Health Alliance a teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School (Transfer 4). Between 1996 and 2009, the Division received around seven million US dollars, one part of which was retained for its own research and another part of which was distributed to other researchers (Transfer 5). At the end of this five-step chain the visibility of the link between the source (losses from gambling) and the recipient (the researcher) has become so watered down that ethical doubts are obscured. Similar but shorter intermediary transfer chains operate through bodies such as the South African National Responsibility Gambling Foundation (Ladouceur, 2008) in and the GREaT Foundation in the UK (Responsibility in Gambling Trust [RIGT], 2009). The task of de-coupling occurs in a different fashion in places where the majority of gambling is state owned, such as in the Netherlands and in most Canadian Provinces. The route tends to involve transfers from one government agency to another, often from a stateowned corporate to a government department, and then to another department or to a subsidiary or quasi-government agency. For example, in Sweden their largest gambling operator, the government-owned Svenska Spel, transfers a large part of its funding for research to another government subsidiary, the Swedish National Institute for Public Health (Jonsson & Ronnberg, 2008). The transfer between different parts or semi-attached parts of government reduces the sense of connection with the source, but retains some capacity for those close to the source to shape the direction of its deployment. The Tripartite Partnership Committee Another common practice involves moving gambling profits via a platform that is purpose-built to convey the impression of balancing out sectorial or partisan interests. Typically, a committee is formed with representation from each of the three key sectors:

4 148 Editorial government, industry, and health or community agencies. The tripartite character of these committees can take one of two forms: either representatives from each of the three sectors are appointed, or only the industry and health/community representatives are selected and the government officials provide a secretariat or hosting role for administrating the arrangement; in reality these officials play a strong and sometimes leading role in its deliberations. An example of the former occurred during the last decade in the Australian state of Queensland where their Treasury hosted a tripartite Gambling Research Panel that distributed research funds. Examples of the latter have occurred in New Zealand where a range of government-hosted committees with industry and health/community representation have guided research funding allocations. As discussed in more detail elsewhere (Adams, Buetow, & Rossen, 2010), tripartite partnership committees generate a false impression that the health/community sector have an equal say in research allocation when in reality those representing the government and industry sectors possess far greater capacity to affect outcomes. For example, it is usually government officials who decide on health/community representation and often retain the role of defining research priorities. Moreover, industry representatives are often in a position to challenge and sometimes veto funding for projects or researchers they perceive as inconvenient. The independent panel of experts An increasingly widespread practice involves forming a panel of gambling experts which determines (or advises ) on how money for research is distributed and thereby creates the appearance of independent disbursement. For example, in the UK the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, which advises government agencies on gambling services, has a Research Panel made up of experts who advise them on research funding. Similarly, in the Australian state of Victoria the Department of Justice has formed an Independent Peer Review Panel consisting of gambling experts who advise on gambling funding. There are a variety of reasons to question the independence claimed in this practice. In the first place, there are many opportunities within the nexus of industry and government relationships to influence panel membership and particularly to block selection of academics whose backgrounds are perceived as threatening to industry interests. In the second place, it is not unheard of for panel membership to include people with strong industry affiliations. For example, a panel formed to review competitive bids for New Zealand s largest research project, a repeat national prevalence study, included a leading figure in the EGM industry. And, finally, the panels are often set up more on an advisory basis with the final decisions made by another group, either a separate tripartite partnership committee or an unnamed group of government officials. Peer review The use of peer review is often combined with one of the three earlier practices and runs on the assumption that independent scrutiny by two or three experts with a background in the same area will help avoid biased and poorly designed research. Certainly peer review comprises an important part of the backbone of systems used in maintaining high standards of scientific enquiry but, as anyone involved in these processes will know, its effectiveness also relies on several other features, particularly on the procedures used for selecting reviewers and for finally deciding what happens with the reviewer s recommendations. With independence lacking at any point in the chain, the peer review process is reduced to

5 International Gambling Studies 149 a token exercise. For example, a government official who sends a gambling determinants application to a reviewer known to have industry links can be reasonably confident of a negative review. Similarly, any discomfort of members on a tripartite partnership committee with a particular project can be addressed by ignoring positive reviews. Blending of sources One effective but less commonly employed sanitizing practice is for industry contributions to be combined with other less ethically questionable sources such as funding from other government sources, banks or city councils. This serves to water down the link and thereby to reassure researchers that, by and large, they are engaging in ethical funding. For example, applications to a research fund established from contributions by a casino, a car manufacturer and a trucking firm would be viewed as more acceptable than applying to a fund formed by a casino alone. Maintaining influence A significant risk to the gambling industry of non-direct transfers is that the sanitizing practices will lead to the industry losing influence over how the money is deployed, which would defeat its purpose of funding researchers in the first place. Indeed, when it comes to a blending of sources it can become very difficult to compete with other donors, each of whom would seek to claim their share of the influence and their share of the credit. This might explain why the blending of sources is the least preferred strategy. By way of contrast, structural de-coupling is the easiest practice in which to maintain control because influence can be maintained through the capacity or perceived capacity to turn off the supply of money. Transfer through a tripartite partnership committee or a panel of experts risks losing control but influence can still be maintained as long as control is exercised over committee or panel membership. For example, many panels are populated by experts who have a strong track record in receiving industry funds, as occurs with the Scientific Advisory Board that advises the US Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders. Another strategy commonly employed within the tobacco and alcohol fields is to engage eminent researchers or clinicians from non-specialist backgrounds (such as general medicine or psychology). Since they are often unfamiliar with the ethical issues associated with receiving industry funding, they can provide a credible and non-threatening input on an expert panel, or input to government committees or public statements. Influence can also be protected through constraints on the range of topics that are investigated. For example, in Ontario where gambling is predominantly state owned, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care provides a four million dollar (Canadian) fund to the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre (OPGRC) which it then disperses competitively to research groups. The OPGRC Board for this fund consists of people with impeccable credentials in the field, but their focus is constrained by the research priorities. All six of their current priorities focus on areas of problem gambling treatment and individual psychology without clear attention to the broader and arguably more critical social and economic determinants (OPGRC, 2011). One of the most instructive examples of the importance of influence occurred in 2000 in the Australian state of Victoria during a short-lived attempt to fund research through an independent Gambling Research Panel. The panel was entrusted with an unusually high level of independence, which it used to fund a broad range of projects that included work focused on social and economic determinants of gambling. As the nature of this research

6 150 Editorial began to surface and the findings began to challenge gambling interests, the Victorian government abruptly disbanded the panel and replaced it with its own version of a safer and more easily influenced tripartite partnership arrangement (for a more detailed description see Adams, 2008). It is surprising that those involved in public-good gambling research people who on a daily basis examine the negative effects of gambling appear reluctant to question the financial sources that bankroll their activities. Added to this, researchers who receive such funds risk engaging in real or perceived conflicts of interest which in turn jeopardize their purpose, autonomy and academic integrity (Stenius & Babor, 2009; Adams, 2007). This editorial contends that since gambling researchers are responsible for generating what we know about gambling, they have a particular duty to review the ethical risks associated with accepting industry funds. In doing so, there are two domains of risk that they need to consider: the first involves recognizing that the sanitizing practices do not change the nature of the source; whether it is received directly from industry or transferred through intermediate bodies or independent panels, the money still carries the stains of its exploitative acquisition. The second domain of risk involves recognizing how each of the sanitizing practices listed above carry with them ways in which gambling industry interests can influence both what is researched and how it is conducted. These issues warrant more concerted and open debate. The pressure on gambling researchers to accept industry funding is understandably stronger in environments where alternative sources of funding are scarce. A key way of reducing this pressure would involve creating sources of funding that are not derived from the profits of gambling. As long as independence is assured at every point along the funding process, these sources could provide sustained support for high quality research in this emerging field. Possible models for achieving this would be the focus for other investigations, but whatever arrangements are explored, three critical ingredients would need to be considered. The first ingredient would involve establishing within government a point of independent accountability that is visibly disconnected from interests in the profits from gambling. This is difficult, particularly in those countries where gambling is state owned. It could conceivably be achieved through a committee or a commission that reports directly to the legislature (parliament or house of representatives) rather than to the executive (or associated ministries and departments). This body would oversee and monitor any other arrangements. The second ingredient would involve allocating a significant level of funding for gambling research with money that is in no way tagged to industry sources. Most importantly, this would require ring-fencing of funding from a government s consolidated funds and not derived from consumption levies or hypothecated sources. The third ingredient would involve establishing an independent mechanism for managing, awarding and monitoring specific research projects in much the same way that the Victoria Gambling Research Panel (mentioned above) once strived to achieve. Without independent accountability, dissociated sources and robust research funding processes, it is difficult to envisage researchers making a genuine contribution to reducing harm from gambling. Notes The author did not receive funding support for this work and, to his knowledge, has no relationship to any other activity that benefits directly from alcohol, gambling and other dangerous consumption industries. The author has participated in research teams funded by a government-administered levy on gambling.

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