Sally Gainsbury: gambling researcher and author at Ozwin Casino
My name is Sally Gainsbury. I am a Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, Director of the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic at the Brain and Mind Centre, and, since 2026, a contributing author for Ozwin Casino’s Australian editorial team. I have spent more than two decades studying the way people gamble – particularly online – and I believe that honest, evidence-based information is one of the most practical harm-reduction tools available to Australian players right now. Before I wrote a single word for this site, I spent years in labs, clinics, and government policy meetings figuring out what actually harms people and what genuinely helps them.
I did not arrive at this kind of writing from a marketing background. I came from the research side of the table, and that distinction shapes everything I publish here.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Sally Melissa Gainsbury |
| Qualifications | BPsych (Hons), PhD (Psychology), Doctorate of Clinical Psychology |
| Current position | Professor and Director, Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic |
| Institution | University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre |
| Peer-reviewed publications | 130+ journal articles, 2 books |
| Journal editorship | Editor, International Gambling Studies |
| Fellowship | 2024 Churchill Fellow (NSW) |
| Location | Sydney, NSW, Australia |
| Research focus | Online gambling, harm minimisation, technology and behavioural risk |
Education and academic background
I completed all three of my university degrees at the University of Sydney – a Bachelor of Psychology with Honours, a PhD in Psychology, and a Doctorate of Clinical Psychology. That last qualification matters more than it might first appear: I am not only a researcher but a trained clinician, which means my understanding of gambling problems is grounded in direct clinical contact with people experiencing real harm, not purely in survey data and regression tables. The combination of research and clinical training gives me a perspective that neither path alone would produce.
My doctoral research examined internet gambling at a time when online casinos were still being treated by the broader academic community as a niche curiosity rather than a serious public health concern. That early work helped establish a framework for understanding why internet gambling carries distinct risks compared to land-based play – things like 24-hour access, account-based tracking, the absence of social cues, the speed of digital transactions, and the structural invisibility of losses on a screen. Those factors have only become more relevant as Australian players have moved almost entirely to mobile platforms, and they inform the lens I bring to every piece of writing I do.
Spending all three degrees at the same institution gave me something less obvious: deep familiarity with a single intellectual community and its standards of evidence. The University of Sydney’s School of Psychology demands methodological rigour, and I carry that standard into everything I publish outside the academic context as well.
| Degree | Institution | Focus area |
|---|---|---|
| BPsych (Hons) | University of Sydney | Psychology foundations and research methods |
| PhD (Psychology) | University of Sydney | Internet gambling behaviour and risk |
| Doctorate of Clinical Psychology | University of Sydney | Clinical practice with gambling-related presentations |
Career path
After completing my postgraduate studies, I built my academic career through a series of research positions focused on gambling, digital behaviour, and harm minimisation policy. The early years were spent accumulating evidence – running studies, publishing findings, and beginning to work with the government bodies and community organisations that would eventually translate that research into real policy. Over time I moved into a more senior leadership role at the University of Sydney, where I now oversee both research activity and clinical services at the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic.
The clinic itself is worth describing because it is unusual. It is the only university-affiliated gambling treatment service in Australia, which means it sits at the intersection of academic research and direct clinical care. That dual function shapes how I think: I am not a pure theorist, and I am not a pure practitioner. I work in a setting where what we learn in the clinic informs what we study, and what we study informs how we treat. In 2024, I received a Churchill Fellowship – a competitive national award – which funded a period of international travel examining technology-based harm-reduction models that I subsequently reported back to Australian stakeholders.
Alongside all of that, I have maintained a presence in the policy and regulatory space, appearing as a keynote speaker at conferences including the Regulating the Game symposium in Sydney in 2026, advising government inquiries, and contributing expert commentary to media and public-facing platforms. The Ozwin Casino authorship role fits into that last category: it is one of several channels through which I try to make research findings accessible to the people who most need them.
| Period | Role | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Early career | Research Fellow | University-based gambling research units |
| Mid-career | Associate Professor | University of Sydney, School of Psychology |
| Current | Professor and Director, Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic | University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre |
| 2024 | Churchill Fellow (Donald Mackay Fellowship) | Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, NSW |
| 2026 | Contributing author | Ozwin Casino editorial team |
What my research actually covers
A lot of people assume gambling research is either about problem gambling prevalence statistics or about policy recommendations written for government audiences. My work covers both of those areas, but it goes considerably further. I study the structural characteristics of gambling products themselves – how game speed, interface design, reward mechanics, feedback loops, and marketing all interact with the psychology of the individual player sitting in front of a screen. I also look at what actually works when it comes to reducing harm, which means evaluating real-world interventions rather than just theorising about them. That applied focus is something I came to deliberately.
The research areas I have concentrated on most heavily across my career include the following. Online gambling and internet-specific risk: why digital platforms create different risk profiles than land-based venues, and what those differences mean for consumer protection design. Electronic gaming machines: particularly how spending information is presented to players, how they perceive past and future expenditure, and how impulsivity and self-control interact with machine features. Harm-minimisation tools: deposit limits, mandatory activity statements, self-exclusion registers, and the evidence – or lack of it – behind each. Technology and behavioural addiction: the relationship between social casino games, loot boxes, video game monetisation, and the pathways some people follow into gambling disorder. Gambling marketing: social media advertising, in-play betting promotions during live sports, and the documented impact of these on adolescents and other vulnerable groups. Digital payments and gambling: a more recent focus on how payment method design shapes spending behaviour and what regulators could do about it.
In 2026, my active research sits most heavily in the harm-minimisation tools space, particularly following the introduction of government-mandated activity statements for online gambling in Australia and the ongoing debates about mandatory deposit limits. The evidence base for these measures is still being built, and I am part of the group building it.
My key active research areas in 2026:
- Online gambling and internet-specific risk factors
- Electronic gaming machine interface design and spending perception
- Mandatory harm-minimisation tools and their measured effectiveness
- Technology-related behavioural addictions, including loot boxes and social casino products
- Gambling advertising on social media and during live sports broadcasts
- Digital payment methods and their relationship to gambling expenditure patterns
- Consumer protection policy under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 framework
Selected publications
I have authored and co-authored more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles, two books, and numerous government and industry research reports. Academic publishing is not the only format that matters – I have also contributed to reports for the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, Gambling Research Australia, and the NSW Responsible Gambling Fund, among others. The table below gives a representative sample across different periods and topic areas.
| Year | Topic area | Publication outlet |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Characteristics and behaviours of internet gamblers | Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking |
| 2014 | Social casino gambling and its relationship to online gambling | Computers in Human Behavior |
| 2015 | Social media marketing practices in the Australian gambling industry | International Gambling Studies |
| 2016 | Consumer protection tools for online gambling platforms | Current Addiction Reports |
| 2018 | Help-seeking and gambling stigma in Australian adults | Psychology of Addictive Behaviors |
| 2020 | Gambling harm and the structural features of digital platforms | Addiction |
| 2022 | Deposit limits as a responsible gambling intervention – evidence review | International Gambling Studies |
| 2024 | Government-mandated activity statements for online gambling in Australia | Gambling Research Australia |
| 2025 | EGM consumers’ understanding of past and future spending patterns | University of Sydney research output |
Beyond the journal articles, I edit International Gambling Studies, which is one of the field’s leading peer-reviewed journals. That editorial role gives me a continuous, current view of the global evidence base – not just what Australian researchers are finding, but what is emerging from regulated markets in the UK, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and North America. It is one reason I can write about Australian gambling with some confidence about how our policy environment compares internationally.
Awards and recognition
My research contributions have been recognised through a range of awards and fellowships across different stages of my career. I mention these not as a form of self-promotion but because, on an author page, readers reasonably want to understand whether the person writing is credible and independent. The answer is that my career has been built entirely within the university and public research sectors, with no commercial ties to the gambling industry.
Recognition received over the course of my career:
- NSW Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year (2019) – awarded by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science
- University of Sydney Research Accelerator Fellowship – competitive internal fellowship supporting research development
- 2024 Churchill Fellow, NSW chapter, Donald Mackay Fellowship – funded international research travel focused on gambling harm reduction
- Recognised as an internationally leading researcher by the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR)
- Invited keynote speaker at the Regulating the Game conference, Sydney (2026)
- Regular contributor to expert panels convened by state and federal government bodies on gambling policy
None of these recognitions came from the gambling industry. All of them came from academic, government, and civil society organisations whose interests are, broadly speaking, aligned with reducing gambling harm rather than increasing gambling revenue.
How I think about evidence and credibility
One of the things that makes writing for a general audience different from writing for an academic journal is that I cannot assume the reader knows what good evidence looks like or why it matters. So let me be direct about how I evaluate claims, whether I am reading a casino’s terms and conditions or a newspaper article about online gambling trends.
I ask first whether a claim is based on data or on assertion. A casino that says it “prioritises player safety” is making an assertion; a casino that publishes actual uptake rates for its responsible gambling tools and allows independent audit of those figures is providing data. Most claims in the online casino space are assertions. Part of what I bring to editorial work here is a practiced habit of distinguishing between the two and communicating that distinction clearly.
I also ask whose interests a piece of information serves. Marketing copy, no matter how responsibly framed, serves the operator. Regulatory guidance serves the state. Academic research, at its best, serves no one’s commercial interest and that is the benchmark I hold my own writing to. I do not accept payment from gambling operators, I do not hold equity in any gambling company, and the content I produce for Ozwin Casino is editorially independent in the same way that a researcher’s policy submission to government is independent – I say what the evidence supports, not what a client wants to hear.
That approach means my writing is sometimes less enthusiastic about particular platforms than other casino review content. That is intentional. Australian players are adults, and they deserve accurate information rather than promotional framing dressed up as editorial content.
My connection to the Australian gambling context
Australia has one of the most complex gambling environments in the world. We have high rates of participation, a large and legally ambiguous offshore online market, one of the most contentious electronic gaming machine footprints of any country, and a regulatory framework – the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 and its subsequent amendments – that creates real differences between what is legal for Australian players and what is available to players in other markets.
I have spent my entire career studying this specific environment. My research has been funded by Australian government bodies and has contributed to policy debates in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and at the federal level. I understand the distinction between a platform licensed in a jurisdiction that offers genuine consumer protections and one that is technically offshore and legally ambiguous for Australian residents. That distinction matters, and it is something I write about directly rather than dancing around.
Australian players depositing A$ into an online casino face specific questions that players in the UK or Canada do not face in quite the same way. The legal landscape, the banking restrictions that affect some payment methods, and the absence of a federal online casino licensing framework all shape what “responsible” looks like in this market. My research background means I can speak to those questions from a position of genuine familiarity rather than generic content.
Collaboration and policy engagement
Academic research that stays inside the university has limited impact. Throughout my career I have made a point of engaging with stakeholders outside the academic world – not because that is fashionable but because the problems I study are real problems affecting real people, and the solutions require cooperation across sectors. I have worked with gambling treatment providers, community legal centres, consumer advocacy groups, government regulators at both state and federal levels, and, selectively, with industry operators where the engagement has been structured to preserve research independence.
That experience of working across sectors has shaped how I communicate. I can write for a government committee, for a peer-reviewed journal, for a community health audience, and – as evidenced by this page – for Australian adults who want to make more informed decisions about where and how they gamble online. These are different audiences with different needs, and writing well for each of them requires knowing what the audience already understands and what they do not.
In 2026, my external engagement includes ongoing contributions to the National Consumer Protection Framework review, which is examining the evidence base behind mandatory responsible gambling tools for Australian online wagering customers. That review is directly relevant to the kind of content I write here, and it keeps my understanding of the policy landscape current.
Contact and professional links
Readers who want to engage with my academic work can find peer-reviewed publications and research outputs through the University of Sydney’s researcher profile system and via ResearchGate. My editorial work for this site can be reached through Ozwin Casino’s standard contact channels.
