Conference Committee
Dr. Ruth Van Holst
Dr. Ruth J. van Holst is a cognitive clinical neuroscientist and associate professor at the Amsterdam UMC, at the department of Psychiatry. Ruth has extensive experience in addiction research, specifically focused on gambling disorder and it is her pleasure to organize the CAGR 2024 conference.
Lisa Esquibel
Lisa is assisting the committee and helping with the admistration of CAGR2024.
Funding & Partner Organizations
AFSG (Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling)
The Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG) is a group of academic researchers in the UK dedicated to advancing the research needed to effectively prevent, reduce, and address gambling harm. The purpose of the AFSG is to act as a coordinated body to assert the importance of rigorous, independent research to prevent, reduce, and address gambling harm in the UK. To accomplish its aims, the AFSG engages in a number of activities including, but not limited to: responding to or initiating calls for evidence; providing seed grants for promising research; supporting independent gambling conferences; public engagement; and providing opportunities for students.
Greo Evidence Insights
Greo Evidence Insights is an independent knowledge translation and exchange organization with two decades of international experience in generating, synthesizing, and mobilizing research into action across the health and wellbeing sectors. Greo helps organizations improve their strategies, policies, and practices by harnessing the power of evidence and stakeholder insight. Services offered include sourcing and synthesizing evidence, creating knowledge and education products, facilitation and stakeholder engagement, data and knowledge management support, evaluation, and applied research. Greo also provides backbone support for larger scale multi-stakeholder initiatives which can include designing and managing funding calls and facilitating external reviews of proposed projects to ensure the highest standards of integrity. In this way, Greo supports the generation of quality, objective, unbiased research, and protects the intellectual freedom and property of researchers and stakeholders.
ZonMw
We connect people and organizations on relevant social and scientific issues that affect health, care and well-being.
Innovation in health, healthcare and well-being concerns healthy living, disease prevention, new treatments and drugs, and the right care at the right place. Our health is also increasingly interwoven with broader societal challenges.
To answer these questions, we need knowledge and scientific research across the full breadth of the knowledge chain, from fundamental research to implementation projects. That requires close collaboration across disciplines and making available project data and results accessible.
By detecting knowledge gaps, facilitating knowledge development and encouraging the use of this knowledge in practice, we continue to respond to the changing world around us. We increase the relevance, quality and impact of research and accelerate breakthroughs to make good health accessible for all.
Amsterdam UMC
Conference Program Committee
Amanda Roberts is a Professor and Director of Research in the School of Psychology at the University of Lincoln, UK. She completed her first degree at University College London (BSc Hons Psychology), before moving to Cardiff University to conduct her PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience. Amanda took up her first permanent full-time post at Kings College London, before moving to Queen Mary University, University of East London, and then to Lincoln.
Amanda has extensive experience in addiction research in vulnerable populations and has previously worked with patient populations from the NHS, HMP Prisons, homeless services, and charities. She is an expert in large-scale projects, gambling-harm research, and has 20 years’ experience running quantitative and qualitative research projects in treatment populations, specifically in the NHS, the criminal justice system and third sector organisations. Amanda has numerous national and international multidisciplinary collaborations with researchers in Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. She is also an academic partner of three of the five principal gambling treatment providers in the UK (Gordon Moody, Northern Gambling Service and National Problem Gambling Clinic). Her research interests extend across topics that relate to gambling-related harm, gambling and mental health, gambling and suicide, gambling in vulnerable populations, gambling and interpersonal violence, NPS use, and homelessness.
Dr. Steve Sharman is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, leading the behavioural addictions research group at the National Addiction Centre, King’s College London. His current research focuses on using virtual reality to better understand in-game influences on gambling behaviour, and the interaction between individual susceptibility, product design, and environment in gambling and disordered gambling. He is a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling (ABSG), the Executive Committee for the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG), and is co-chair of the Current Advances in Gambling Research Conference committee. Prior to his URKI FLF, Steve was awarded a King’s Prize Fellowship to work at KCL. Before this, he was awarded an SSA Academic Fellowship to work with virtual reality and gambling at the University of East London (UEL), having previously worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Lincoln. Steve completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology at University of East London, followed by a master’s degree at University College London in Cognitive Neuroscience. He won a scholarship to complete his PhD in Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, investigating cognition and decision-making in pathological and regular gamblers
Anneke Goudriaan is an endowed professor in Addiction at AmsterdamUMC, University of Amsterdam and Arkin/Jellinek. She also works as a licensed psychologist at Jellinek, center for addiction treatment in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Anneke is an expert in gambling research, and has been studying the neurobiological factors related to gambling disorder for over 20 years, and published over 200 international publications in the field of behavioral addictions and substance use disorders .
She heads the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research – https://aiar.nl/en. Within the first national call for gambling research in the Netherlands, she is the PI on a research project to investigate and innovate cognitive behavioral treatment for gambling disorder.
I am primarily working as a counselor in addiction healthcare for SolutionS Center. I specialize in treating people with gambling addiction and I also focus on the system (family and friends) of our patients. Besides that I work as an external advisor for the Dutch Gambling Authority. In my work I greatly value collaboration with scientific research, and I do not just work to treat addiction, but also to prevent it.
Bram Constandt is an Assistant Professor of Sport Management at the Department of Movement and Sports Sciences of Ghent University in Belgium. His research agenda focuses on responsible management in sport, with an emphasis on the normalization of gambling in society via sport.
Eva van Reijmersdal is an associate professor of persuasive communication in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research ASCoR at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the persuasive effects of sponsored content, including influencer marketing and advergames, on children and adults. Recently she received a grant from ZonMw together with Hilde Voorveld to examine the impact of exposure to gambling advertising on vulnerable groups.
With over 6 years as the chairman of SLICKS, an advocacy organization for gamblers, I am dedicated to representing the collective interests, particularly of at-risk and problem gamblers. My leadership includes engaging in discussions with government agencies, participating in research committees like ZonMW, lobbying in politics or local government, giving interviews to various media outlets, and actively participating in the representation and advocacy of clients and benefit recipients.
SLICKS, founded in 2017, focuses on a comprehensive approach to tackling gambling addiction, comprising advocacy, a knowledge center, and support services.
Dr. Luke Clark is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC. The Centre was established in 2014 with funding from the Province of British Columbia government and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation.
Dr. Antonius J. van Rooij (Tony) is the lead researcher at the Trimbos Institute on the topics of gaming, gambling, and digital balance. He completed a PhD on Video Game Addiction (2011). He has over eighteen years of experience in conducting applied research projects and policy advice on the interplay of technology and health, in the specific domains of gaming, gambling and digital balance. Since 2017, he has been active in gambling research and policy advice in the Netherlands, resulting in multiple projects with national level impact.
Dr. Flóra Felso is research coordinator at the Kansspelautoriteit (The Netherlands Gambling Authority).
Flóra obtained her PhD in applied microeconomics on consumer choice at the University of Amsterdam. She worked as a researcher in the field of competition and regulation at the University of Amsterdam, Delft University of Technology and Centraal Planbureau – Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Currently she works at the Kanspelautoriteit coordinating a multidisciplinary research group covering various aspects of regulating gambling markets. She has over 25 years of experience in quantitative and qualitative research.
Current Advances in Gambling Research 
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