TRG Webinars

Hosted by the Technology Addiction team at the Brain and Mind Centre and co-chaired by Professor Sally Gainsbury and Assistant Professor Kahlil S. Philander

This online series covers a range of issues relevant to stakeholders looking to understand more about gambling, technology, and risk taking.

The one-hour seminars include discussions with thought leaders worldwide, speaking on a wide range of topics relevant to stakeholders interested in understanding how design and emerging technologies impact gambling, including risky decision making and behaviours, and implications for research, policy, and practice.

The international expert speakers bring a range of backgrounds and experiences from multidisciplinary fields. One of the aims of this seminar series is to highlight emerging researchers and allow new voices to contribute to the field. As such, early and mid-career experts form an integral part of our speaker line-up. The seminar series is interactive and attendees have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in the discussion with the live online community.

In Season 5, we will hear from leading experts from outside the gambling field and think specifically about the different populations and discuss the practicalities of using technologies to enhance decision-making and reduce harms.

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Season 6 webinars

Available from Thursday 25th June 8.30 AM Watch EPISODE 1

The Technology, Risk and Gambling, hosted by Professor Sally Gainsbury and produced by the Technology Addiction Team at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney is back as a podcast! This season, Informed Decisions: Financial Behaviour in Persuasive Digital Environments, explores how people make financial decisions in digital spaces where attention, timing, risk, and behaviour are constantly being shaped by design. In this episode, Professor Annamaria Lusardi, Professor of Finance at Stanford University and founder of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center, joins Professor Sally Gainsbury to discuss financial literacy, financial decision-making, and what gambling can reveal about the limits of financial capability. Their conversation explores why basic financial knowledge matters, including compound interest, inflation, risk, and diversification, while also considering the role knowledge plays in behavioural change. Visit BetWell: Bet with more clarity, insight and intention https://betwell.org.au/

Available from Thursday, 2nd July 8.30 AM Watch EPISODE 2

In this episode, Dr Tracey West joins Professor Sally Gainsbury to discuss what actually works in financial education, and how we know.

Tracey is a financial capability researcher and practitioner whose work spans financial education, behavioural change, consumer wellbeing, and large-scale program evaluation. Drawing on her experience with initiatives such as Talk Money with Ecstra Foundation, the conversation explores what financial education programs can achieve, what their evaluation data can and cannot tell us, and why the gap between knowledge, intention, and behaviour matters.

The episode considers how financial capability should be understood in practice, especially for young people navigating digital environments shaped by gambling, buy now pay later products, investing apps, scams, and online spending. It also examines where responsibility sits with individuals, educators, regulators, governments, or commercial platforms.

Visit BetWell: Bet with more clarity, insight and intention
https://betwell.org.au/

Available from Thursday, 9th July 8.30 AM Watch EPISODE 3

In this episode, Chris Kohler joins Professor Sally Gainsbury to discuss how financial information cuts through in a noisy digital world. Chris is Finance Editor at 9News, author of How They Get You, and host of the podcast How We Got Here. He has also built one of Australia’s largest independent finance audiences, with more than 750,000 followers on Instagram, by explaining complex financial systems clearly and accessibly.

The conversation explores why clear communication matters, especially when products and platforms are deliberately designed to influence consumer behaviour. Chris and Sally discuss how short-form videos can reveal the mechanisms behind pokies, lotteries, sports betting, prediction markets, loyalty schemes, buy-now-pay-later products, and other systems that often work against consumers’ interests.

They also consider the limits of communication. If people understand that a product is designed to influence them, does that knowledge actually change behaviour? What can public-facing communication do that official warnings, academic research, or government messaging often cannot? And where does responsibility sit when legal products are built around psychological pressure, persuasive design, and information imbalance?

Visit BetWell: Bet with more clarity, insight and intention
https://betwell.org.au/

Season 5 webinars

The Technology, Risk, and Gambling webinar series continues to focus on supporting early career researchers and using the TRG as a way to showcase emerging leaders in the field. To this end, the final episode of Season 5 will be our ECR Showcase in which we will allow ECRs to present their research.

This is a call for submissions from all early career researchers who can present their research which relates to Technology, Risk, and Gambling. ECRs are considered to be a current student or someone who has graduated within the past 5 years.

Please prepare a proposal including:

Your name
Details of your current or recent degree (ie degree title, institution, supervisor, year of graduation)
Title and abstract for your 2-3 minute talk (one slide permitted, 200 word abstract max)
Brief bio including any speaking experience

Please send your submission to the Brain and Mind Centre team for review by clicking here.

Proposals are due by October 11th, however, early submissions may be given preferential consideration. This episode will broadcast on the 6th November, 2024. Successful ECRs will be required to submit a pre-recording to go live on this date.

Please share this invitation with your networks.

With thanks,
Prof Sally Gainsbury.

4 September 2024

Chris Raine - Co-Founder of Clean Slate Clinic and Founder/CEO of Hello Sunday Morning

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11 September 2024

Lars Oleson - CEO and Co-Founder at Xailient

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18 September 2024

Krista Fisher - Research Fellow - Movember

25 September 2024

Gohar Yazdabadi - CEO - Council on the Ageing NSW

9 October 2024

Simo Dragicevic adn Sarah Ramanauskas - The Game Safety Institute

16 October 2024

Melissa Salmon and Tracy Schrans - Focal Research

23 October 2024

Chris Boyd-Skinner - Director, Clinical Governance - Australia Digital Health Agency

30 October 2024

Frederike Petzschner - Psychiatry, Embodiment and Computation (PEAC) Lab at the Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University

Season 4 Webinars

5 October 2023

Peta Murphy MP- Federal Member for Dunkley, Chair of Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, Australian Labor Party, House of Representatives

Watch now on YouTube

12 October 2023

Fred Steinmetz - Co-founder & Researcher, Blockchain Research Lab

Watch now on YouTube

19 October 2023

Andrew Orbach- Gaming Analyst at Taylor Collison.

Watch now on YouTube

26 October 2023

Naomi Muggleton - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford

Watch now on YouTube

2 November 2023

Laura Da Silva Gomes - Director, Silverfish CSR Limited