Network dialogue

"Share and Win" is our guiding principle: together with our stakeholders, we seek to develop knowledge about responsible gaming and internet technology and society, and then share the results with the world.

In the digital age, stakeholders can approach responsible gaming on the Internet in a completely new manner because they can analyse actual user behaviour reliably. For instance, leading scientists can study actual gaming behaviour and develop new web-based responsible gaming measures and interventions. The unique communication and interaction mechanisms of the internet have already led to new possibilities for societal participation and creative output, as well as new safety and protection mechanisms.

Ever since 2005, thanks to our cooperation with the Harvard Medical School faculty working at the Division on Addiction ("DOA"), Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School we have been setting new standards with respect to both the quality of behavioural research and the transparent handling of data and results.

The Transparency Project is just one example of this collaboration. This project encourages researchers from all over the world to analyse unique databases of actual bwin.party subscriber gaming activity. By offering public access to research data that might shed light on gaming behaviour, the DOA and bwin.party aim to give the international scientific community empirical resources and fuel for innovative ideas.

In addition, dialogue and transparency take place in the conventional manner by means of a direct exchange, as well as online. For example, in 2009 bwin held the first network dialogue on the status quo and opportunities for research into responsible gaming and the prevention of online addiction in Vienna. Representatives of non-governmental organisations, the media, and politics discussed the possibilities offered by the internet for the protection of customers in a round table with leading addiction researchers.

The ambitious research projects that we currently support, in addition to the work of the DOA, must be seen as a continuation of this tradition of a scientific exchange of views:

For more than two years now, a team of researchers at Dresden Technical University, under the direction of Gerhard Bühringer, professor of addiction research, has been investigating the protective and risk-associated factors of psychosocial background in the development or non-development of pathological gaming traits.

Together with his students at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen (Germany), Professor Dirk Baecker, holder of the chair for Cultural Theory and Analysis, is developing ideas and scenarios focusing on the significance of collaborative work, money and games in the digital society.

From our standpoint, it is essential to carry out interdisciplinary scientific research into the risks, opportunities, and possibilities of real money gaming within the digital society. It is for this reason that we seek to promote an exchange between different research disciplines and the establishment of a scientific network in connection with our cooperation with the DOA.

One thing is clear within this context: no matter to what conclusions the psychologists, physicians, sociologists, communication scientists, economists and lawyers might come to, they will be based on facts rather than on speculation. And we intend to share and discuss their results with the world – always in a transparent, open and participatory manner – and of course online.