The National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) was founded in 1996 as the only national organization exclusively devoted to funding research that helps increase understanding of pathological and youth gambling and finds effective methods of treatment for the disorder. The NCRG is the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) affiliated charity.

The NCRG’s mission is to help individuals and families affected by gambling disorders by supporting the finest peer-reviewed, scientific research into pathological and youth gambling; encouraging the application of new research findings to improve prevention, diagnostic, intervention and treatment strategies; and advancing public education about responsible gaming.

Boyd Gaming provided the start-up funds for the NCRG in 1996 and made a 10-year pledge of $875,000. Other leading gaming companies, including Argosy Gaming Company, Harrah's Entertainment, Isle of Capri Casinos, IGT and MGM MIRAGE continue to support the NCRG as major donors.

To date, more than $15 million has been committed to the NCRG through contributions from the casino gaming industry, equipment manufacturers, vendors, related organizations and individuals. Research funding is distributed through the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders, a program of the Division on Addictions at Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. In 2000, the NCRG provided the funding to create the Institute as part of Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addictions. Five years later, the Division on Addictions, and with it the Institute, moved to the Cambridge Health Alliance.

The Institute’s mission is to alleviate the individual, social, medical and economic burdens caused by pathological gambling through support of rigorous scientific research. Advancing understanding of pathological gambling and related psychiatric disorders, such as substance abuse, will lead to improved methods of diagnosis, intervention, treatment and prevention.

Modeled after the National Institutes of Health, the Institute supports both internal core gambling research and competitively funded external research at educational, medical and research institutions worldwide. Scientific advisory panels evaluate research proposals and determine through peer review the research to be funded. The Institute’s internal research program is led by Dr. Howard Shaffer, the director of the Division on Addictions, whose research into gambling addiction has pioneered the field.