Things have come a long way since the first Current Advances in Gambling Research conference was held in London back in 2019 in front of about 50 delegates. Since then, CAGR has moved around – from Cardiff, back to London, then on to Amsterdam in 2024 and Glasgow last year. 2026 saw around 200 delegates join for two-and-a-half days of presentations, posters, workshops and networking in the beautiful Finnish capital, Helsinki. The co-organising team at the Centre for Research on Addiction, Control and Governance have already written up a great review of the conference here, so please do give it a read. It gives an excellent overview of the research topics, ideas and emerging priorities covered by the speakers and poster presentations.
As well as the growth in numbers, it has been brilliant to see delegates from ever more countries attending CAGR. This year, we welcomed speakers from Australia to South Africa and Norway to New Zealand. We were particularly pleased to welcome delegates from Zimbabwe, Morocco, Tanzania and South Africa who benefited from our Low and Middle Income Country bursary scheme. CAGR aims to attract the best researchers and the latest gambling research from around the world to provide diversity in perspectives, approaches and research and the bursary is one way of helping us achieve that goal.
We were also very pleased to be able to welcome a number of people with lived experience of gambling harms from around the world, several of whom were supported to attend through help from the Lived Experience Access Fund. Having a range of experiences and expertise represented each year at CAGR adds to the richness and vitality of the conference.
Organising and hosting CAGR each year is a significant undertaking and it needs many people to make it work. From the team on the reception desk welcoming delegates to the catering team and the cleaners who made sure the conference venue was ready each morning, a big thank you to everyone for your help. Special thanks goes to the AFSG Organising Committee (Steve and Amanda), plus the Host Organising Committee (Virve, Mette and team) for putting in the months of hard work and preparation of screening abstracts, selecting speakers, selling tickets, arranging catering and all of the other tasks that go into making a conference like CAGR happen.
Next year, we’ll be taking CAGR beyond Europe for the very first time with CAGR 2027 being held in Montreal, Canada from 21-23 June. We are excited to be able to take CAGR to a new country and, at least in part, a new audience. We look forward to welcoming many delegates from North America and hope to see many of you who have attended 2026 and previous CAGRs over in Canada too. Follow us and sign up to our mailing list to receive updates and announcements over the coming months.
Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling 