Best gaming research dissertation recognised

An undergraduate dissertation about the prevalence of gambling among university students has won the first edition of the Malta Best Gaming Research Dissertation Award.

Michele Sammut’s Bachelor of Psychology dissertation The Prevalence of Gambling Among University Students was the winner out of three finalists, the other two being Benji Briffa’s Remote Gaming in Malta - An Evaluation of the Tax Implications Involved, and George Gauci’s Remote Processing of an Interactive Application.

The award, which is supported by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority, the University of Malta, The Malta University Student Council and sponsored by Malta-based i-gaming company Betsson, was created to reward the student whose dissertation included findings that are most credible and are most likely to be applied to the gaming industry and society at large. The scope of the award is to promote concepts of responsible gaming, innovative technical ideas for gaming, and research on the commercial models adopted by gaming operators, and legal, social and psychological assessments of the gaming.

This award attracted a good number of high quality university dissertation submissions related to gaming from various disciplines. Panels of independent experts including professionals from the social, ICT and financial fields, reviewed the academic standards of the submitted dissertations and the top three entries made it to the final. The winner was determined by their ability to best convince the panel of international industry experts, of their dissertation’s applicability and relevance to gaming.

Mr Sammut was awarded a cash gift of €1,500 from Betsson’s CEO, Magnus Silfverberg. Addressing the award ceremony, Reuben Portanier, CEO of the Lotteries and Gaming Authority, said LGA supports all those initiatives that promote research, innovation and responsible gaming. Anton Bartolo, on behalf of the University of Malta, commented that this award was one of a series of industry to academia initiatives spearheaded by university.

When presenting the award and the diplomas to the finalists, Mr Silfverberg congratulated the three finalists for the high quality research they performed and further congratulated the winner for presenting a well-studied re­search on the problem of gambling which is an important subject in view of responsible gaming. The Betsson CEO added that this is very much at heart to his company, which was awarded the Social Responsible Operator of the Year 2009 in the prestigious EGR Awards in London.