GamAcad for Higher Education offers the first fully integrated campus solution combining prevention education, screening, professional development, and institutional reporting
GREENVILLE, NC — College students are gambling at rates that alarm researchers and campus health professionals. Research by Drs. Malkin and Stacey found that over 5% of college students, and as many as 13% of college males, reported gambling-related harms affecting their academic performance, mental health, or financial wellness — yet most institutions still respond with one-time presentations or standalone awareness campaigns that reach only a fraction of those at risk. GamAcad for Higher Education, developed through the Gambling Research and Policy Initiative at East Carolina University and now available nationwide through Gamblytics, offers something fundamentally different: a coordinated, campus-wide system built specifically for the scale and complexity of the problem.
“Sports betting apps, online casinos, and prediction markets have made gambling frictionless for college students in ways that didn’t exist a decade ago,” said Dr. Michelle L. Malkin, co-developer of GamAcad and faculty member at East Carolina University. “Yet campuses have robust systems for mental health, alcohol, and substance use — gambling has remained largely invisible inside those same institutions. GamAcad gives higher education the infrastructure to finally treat it with the same seriousness.”
GamAcad for Higher Education integrates six interconnected components into a single institutional framework:
- Betting Blueprint Curriculum — A peer-delivered, activity-based curriculum covering gambling awareness, lower-risk decision-making, financial wellness, and emerging gambling trends. The initial package includes the first 10 modules plus a Train-the-Trainer (T³) component.
- Emerging Adult Gambling Screen (EAGS) — A campus-specific screening and referral tool with a personalized institutional QR code, included at no additional charge.
- Outreach & Screening Implementation + Annual Data Report — Institutional support for campus outreach efforts and a yearly data report tracking trends, engagement, and student needs.
- Collegiate Counselor Gambling Certificate (CCGC) — Professional development for counseling staff and helping professionals to strengthen campus response capacity.
- Administrator, Student Affairs & Staff Certificates — Stakeholder training to build institution-wide awareness and prevention readiness.
- Canvas LMS Access — Included for scalable deployment across orientation programs, athletics, residence life, peer education, classrooms, and virtual environments.
The platform is designed to serve student affairs divisions, counseling centers, health promotion teams, athletics departments, residence life, peer educators, and campus leadership — replacing disconnected efforts with a shared institutional infrastructure.
“What makes GamAcad different is that every component is designed to work together,” said Dr. Michele Stacey, co-developer and co-founder of Gamblytics. “Peer education feeds into screening. Screening connects to counseling capacity. Counseling data informs the institutional report. Campuses don’t just get tools — they get a functioning system.”
As legalized sports betting and online gambling continue to expand nationally, GamAcad for Higher Education is positioned to help institutions move from reactive response to proactive, data-informed prevention. For implementation options, pricing, and institutional partnerships, visit GamAcadEdu.com.