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The Full Story

What We Do

For many organizations, their ends do not justify their means. We work to change that, in whatever way we can. Dr. Volberg has a 40 year record of working towards the common good; having informed many governments and legislators all over the globe on the harms, both social and financial, caused by gambling addiction. As a scientist and woman, she has been fighting for her entire career to create pathways for the treatment and prevention of an underserved addiction. Importantly, it isn't just about what we do, it's about how we do it.

Old Fashioned Library

Mission

Our mission is to create a body of work that informs legislators, regulators, treatment and prevention providers, and other stakeholders, on national and international scales, about the impacts of legal and illegal gambling on individuals, families, and communities

Holding Hands

Vision

Our vision is communities in which everyone has access to information and resources that promote wellbeing and financial security.

Helping Hands
Newton's Pendulum

Aim

At Gemini Research, our aim is to create high-quality, data driven, non-industry funded research reports that assess the social and economic impacts caused by gambling in various jurisdictions, both domestically and globally.

Impact

Socioeconomic impacts of gambling

  • Co-author of the main research report to the U.S. National Gambling Impact Study Commission (Gerstein et al., 1999). · Principal Investigator on the Social & Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) project from its inception in 2013. SEIGMA is the world’s largest gambling research project (12 years from 2013-2025; 13-member team; $17.5M in funding; 56 reports and 11 academic publications).

  • · Principal Investigator on the 2022 study of the socioeconomic impacts of legal gambling in Connecticut (Gemini Research, 2024).

  • · Lead author on a recent comprehensive report on the social and economic impacts of legalized sports betting in Massachusetts (Volberg, Evans, Dezyani & Williams, 2025).

Etiology and prevention of problem gambling

  • Member of research teams conducting large-scale etiological investigations of gambling and problem gambling in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden.

  • · Author of several papers identifying risk factors for gambling-related harm (e.g., Binde et al., 2017; Mazar et al., 2020; Scherrer et al., 2007; Volberg, 2002). · Principal Investigator of the Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort (MAGIC) study, the only large-scale longitudinal cohort study of gambling in the United States (MAGIC Research Team, 2021). The primary purpose of this study was to identify etiological factors that are important in the subsequent development of gambling harm for the purposes of guiding policy efforts.

Epidemiology of gambling and problem gambling

  • Dr. Volberg has directed 75+ prevalence surveys at the state and provincial level in North America and consulted on national prevalence surveys in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.

  • o This work included surveys of adults, adolescents, and indigenous peoples. Together, these studies contributed to the identification of vulnerable sectors of the population and aided in the efficient deployment of problem gambling prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery support services.

  • · Publication of several seminal works on the optimal methodology for population assessment:

  • o Volberg, R.A., Gerstein, D.R., Christiansen, E.M. & Baldridge, J. (2001). Assessing self-reported expenditures on gambling. Managerial and Decision Economics, 22, 77-96.

  • o Volberg, R.A., Gupta, R., Griffiths, M.D., Olason, D.T., & Delfabbro, P. (2010). An international perspective on youth gambling prevalence studies. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 22(1), 3-38.

  • o Williams, R.J. & Volberg, R.A. (2009). Impact of survey description, administration format, and exclusionary criteria on population prevalence rates of problem gambling. International Gambling Studies, 9 (2), 101-117. o Williams, R.J., Volberg, R.A. & Stevens, R.M.G. (2012). The Population Prevalence of Problem Gambling: Methodological Influences, Standardized Rates, Jurisdictional Differences, and Worldwide Trends. Report prepared for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre. (One of the most highly cited works on this topic, with 750+ citations).

  • o Williams, R.J., Zorn, M., Volberg, R.A. & Evans, V. (2023). Can the Behavioral Biases of Opt-In Online Panels be Eliminated or Reduced through Corrective Weighting? Amherst, MA: School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Assessment of gambling and problem gambling

  • Dr. Volberg has engaged in efforts to improve the measurement of problem gambling over the entire course of her career. Dr. Volberg was the first researcher to use a validated measure of problem gambling in a population survey (South Oaks Gambling Screen). Dr. Volberg worked collaboratively with NORC at the University of Chicago to develop and validate the NODS (NORC DSM-IV Screen for Gambling Problems) which has historically been one of the most commonly utilized assessment tools for problem gambling in the general population (Gerstein et al., 1999; Toce-Gerstein, Gerstein & Volberg, 2003).

  • · Starting in the mid-2000s, Dr. Volberg has worked to improve the measurement of problem gambling by conducting experimental research to better understand the performance of the most frequently used problem gambling screens. These efforts culminated in the development and validation of the Problem and Pathological Gambling Measure (PPGM), a problem gambling measure that is the most reliable and valid instrument for the assessment of problem gambling in the general population (Christensen et al., 2019; Molander & Wennberg, 2022; Williams & Volberg, 2010, 2014). A recent update of this instrument (renamed the Problem Gambling Measure, PGM) has also been published (Gooding, Williams & Volberg, 2024).

  • · Another focus of Dr. Volberg’s work is the development of several brief screens for problem gambling (Volberg & Williams, 2011, 2012) to improve the likelihood of screening for gambling problems in substance abuse and mental health settings (Dowling et al., 2018).

  • · Developer with Dr. Robert J. Williams of the first standardized instrument with good reliability and validity for the assessment of gambling participation, the Gambling Participation Instrument (Williams, Volberg et al., 2017)

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