The Partnership and the Database
Reliable information is critical to make progress in addressing any social issue.Recently,several organizations committed to reducing problem gambling came together to form the Canadian Partnership for Responsible Gambling.The Partnership is a collaboration of non-profit organizations,gaming providers,research centres,and regulators working together to identify and promote effective ways to reduce the risk of problem gambling.The first priority of the Partnership was the assembly of reliable and accurate gambling related information.Canadian Gambling Digestis a summary of the information collected to date.In the longer term,the Partnership envisions building on the database,undertaking research and analysis,and creating a central repository of information on tested programs toreduce the risk of problem gambling.

Reading the Report
Canadian Gambling Digestis arranged by subject matter,beginning with general industry data,followed by revenue,revenue distributions,gambling and problem gambling prevalence data,and helpline and treatment statistics across the provinces.Each section begins with a brief introduction describing the information presented in tables and graphs and then highlights some of its salient features.

Data Sources and Definitions
Ms.Nadine Kauffman and Dr.Phil Mun,researchers from the Responsible Gambling Council,assembled the information for this report.The information was obtained from annual reports and other government documents,gambling and problem gambling prevalence studies,web pages,and extensive direct one to one requests from various organizations and agencies.Unless stated otherwise,all data pertain to fiscal year 2002/03 (April 1,2002 to March 31,2003).Note that data that were inaccessible at the time of printing or were simply not recorded by the various agencies are denoted in the tables throughout the report as “unavailable”.Considerable effort has been made to ensure that information is comparable from province to province.Nonetheless,because not all data are directly comparable across provinces (due to differences in reporting,etc),the original sources have been provided in the Key Documents and Endnotes provided in the Appendices.

Reference: CPRG(Canadian Partnership for Responsible Gambling)