Marriott Hotel, Swansea - 28th June 2024

The Centre for Military Gambling Research hosted an event to launch the results of stage 1 of the Scoping the Accessibility of Safer Gambling Information in the UK Armed Forces (SAGE) study and introduce the start of the next stage. The event proved to be an interesting and useful exchange of ideas, with audience members with lived experience in particular contributing insights that will be taken forward by the team.

The launch event featured presentations from the research team, colleagues from Defence Medical Services and from a panel of ex-Service personnel with lived experience of gambling related harm. It also coincided with the publication of the first paper from SAGE in the British Journal of Military Health – which is accessible here: https://militaryhealth.bmj.com/content/jramc/early/2024/06/18/military-2024-002726.full.pdf

The day started with an Introduction by Professor Simon Dymond, Director of MILGAM, who described the background to the SAGE project:

This was followed by Dr Glen Dighton, MILGAM Research Officer, who presented the results from the SAGE survey, summarising the factors which were associated with a higher risk of experiencing gambling-related harms amongst Serving personnel, and factors which were protective of it.

Next, Hannah Champion, former SAGE Research Assistant, presented the results of interviews that had been carried out with Armed Forces personnel and health and welfare staff. She discussed aspects of Armed Forces culture that may facilitate gambling, the impact of gambling on personnel (including that from not seeking or receiving support) and the barriers to seeking and receiving support that were identified.

This was followed by Glen Dighton and Sam Treacy discussing the next stage of the SAGE study, focusing on the gambling, gaming and other risky lifestyle behaviours of younger recruits, in the second phase of their training – which were identified as a potentially more- high-risk group.

Dr Ruth Rushton from Defence Medical Services shared some reflections and next steps regarding Defence Primary Healthcare’s Gambling Treatment Pathway.

The event concluded with a lived experience panel discussion, chaired by Dana Dekel, Research Officer, with four ex-Service personnel. They talked about their experiences of being in the Armed Forces and experiencing gambling-related harm, and their response to the findings presented which resonated with these experiences. They also offered some useful thoughts about conducting the next phase of the research.