Twice a year the Swedish network of gambling researchers – GARN – gathers for a meeting. The fifth meeting took place in Västerås on May 28-29, 2015.
On the first day the discussions continued from the previous meeting about the concept of “behavioral addiction”. There were two presentations on the neurological basis of addiction. Psychologist David Forsström and I presented our article on the Swedish translation of DSM-5 “disordered gambling” into Swedish (“Hasardspelsyndrom”), and the conceptual issues related to this.
The first half of the second day focused on prevention of problem gambling. Opinions were a bit divided about what measures that might be most effective in prevention. I argued that prevention in the workplace should be given more importance; the overwhelming majority of problem gamblers have paid work and excessive gambling may cause a range of harms in the workplace. The second half of the day was about interesting and ongoing studies on youth gambling and gaming.
