Researcher receives $1 million to study compulsive gambling

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000 | 8:33 a.m.

The National Institutes of Mental Health will spend $1 million to fund a study of compulsive gambling being conducted by a Connecticut psychologist.

Dr. Nancy Petry is conducting the country's first scientific study of treatments for gambling addictions. She has been researching the issue since 1998.

The grant is the first of its kind funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, a component of the National Institutes of Health.

"This is huge," said Petry. "The NIH has never funded an organized study of treatment options for compulsive gambling."

Petry's study is designed to gauge th effectiveness of two treatment options she developed by comparing them with the self-help program operated by Gamblers Anonymous.

In Petry's program, participants are treated for eight weeks, then monitored for another year to see if the treatment has helped.

In addition to participating in the eight-week sessions, all participants attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings.

Petry is a nationally recognized scholar in addiction research and has already enrolled more than 85 people in her outpatient programs. With the additional funding, she hopes to enroll 220 participants.