TIGER

The Tennessee Institute for Gambling Education & Research, or TIGER, was established in 1999 by Drs. James Whelan and Andrew Meyers. The catalyst for the Institute was their experience with an individual who presented at the University of Memphis Psychological Services Center with depression. At the first meeting with a graduate student therapist, this individual revealed that a significant contributor to his depression was his gambling. Twice a week, he would travel about 100 miles to a state that offered lottery tickets. On each trip, he would spend a couple of hundred dollars to purchase scratch-off tickets. Sometimes he won. Other times he would drive home swearing that he would never do this again. Of course, three or four days later he was back in pursuit of lottery tickets. His finances and his relationships suffered, which in turn led to depression and thoughts of taking his own life.

As supervisors of this person’s treatment, they searched the literature for evidence of the best treatment options. Finding the literature lacking, they reached out to substance use disorder researchers they knew to puzzle together how to help this man get his life back. The strong collaborative relationship between this man and his therapists bolstered his improvement. As they worked together, they learned how gambling, a non-substance addiction, is both similar and different from substance use problems. Realizing the growth of gambling availability near Memphis, they decided to devote their focus to research questions related to assessing, treating, and preventing gambling problems and harms.

TIGER consists of two interactive arms. The first is The Gambling Clinic, where we offer services related to gambling problems. The other is The Gambling Lab, where we strive to ask questions that help to enhance the services we offer in the clinic. Key to TIGER is the reciprocity of the clinic and the lab. Our research questions come from our work with people who are struggling due to gambling, and our clinic work is constantly being revised based on the research evidence we create.