A third-party evaluation of Gamgard, was conducted by Professor Emeritus J. Bradley Cousins, an internationally renowned evaluation specialist at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (www.crecs.uottawa.ca ).
The evaluation concluded that……….
- There was good evidence that Gamgard is meeting its objectives at the level of developers, operators, and regulators.
- Gamgard has been overtly integrated into company social responsibility protocols worldwide. Essentially, Gamgard assessments play an RG assurance role being seen as an early detection mechanism (i.e., one source of information that is used in conjunction with other SR strategies).
- There is widespread agreement among the game developers/operators and regulators interviewed that Gamgard is highly credible and grounded in science-based evidence. This observation was corroborated by close examination of the sophisticated and thorough processes that were used to develop and periodically update the tool.
- External validity of the tool was evaluated by comparing Gamgard risk ratings with game types reported as most and least problematic in a number of published treatment service provider reports. Games that were scored as high-risk by Gamgard were found to be those games most often reported as problematic by problem gamblers seeking treatment.
The full report can be downloaded here.