The Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders continues the original commitment made by the National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) in 1996 to support and promote the highest-quality scientific research on gambling disorders.

Founded in 1996 as an independent, nonprofit organization, the NCRG launched the first competitive research grants program devoted exclusively to gambling disorders. In 2000, the NCRG awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to Harvard Medical School to create the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders under the leadership of Dr. Howard Shaffer, one of the most distinguished investigators in the field. From 2000 through 2008, the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders supported intramural research conducted by Dr. Shaffer and his colleagues at the Division on Addictions, and extramural research through competitive grants to institutions such as Johns Hopkins University; the University of California, Davis; McGill University; and the University of Iowa. During this period, the Institute expanded its outreach, adding initiatives such as the EMERGE training program for gaming employees and the online self-help guide Your First Step to Change.

In 2009, the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders, an independent program of the NCRG, replaced the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders at the Division on Addictions as the NCRG’s grant-making body.

Since 1996, the NCRG and the Institute have supported more than 60 research investigations yielding the publication of more than 150 scholarly articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. This unprecedented support has expanded the body of knowledge about gambling disorders and resulted in many important “firsts,” including the first reliable prevalence estimates, the first evidence for a genetic component, the first national study of college gambling and many other groundbreaking findings.

The incredible growth of the research field has greatly increased the understanding of gambling disorders, but also has raised new questions that merit further investigation. To support the seminal research that will be required to more fully explore these questions, the NCRG and the Institute created the NCRG Centers of Excellence in Gambling Research in 2009. The first two Centers of Excellence were established at the University of Minnesota and Yale University.