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International Gaming Institute News

The UNLV International Gaming Institute (IGI) is committed to providing cutting-edge insights to the global gaming industry. IGI provides research and programs to more than 50 jurisdictions across the globe—to leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Current International Gaming Institute News

Outdoor view
Campus News |

A collection of top headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

springtime bees
Campus News |

A flowery collection of top headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

Dice on a craps table
Research |

Report reveals operators and regulators with high ambitions but significant gaps in governance, oversight, and AI maturity.

Campus landscape
Campus News |

Some of the hottest headlines featuring UNLV faculty, staff, and students.

Three young girls excitedly watch as one draws on paper with a crayon
Business and Community |

Annual initiative invites CCSD elementary students to explore entertainment, science, and college life — all in one unforgettable day.

two adults organizing and distributing food at event
Campus News |

UNLV community outreach programs offer practical learning opportunities for students while leveraging our resources to address societal needs.

International Gaming Institute In The News

KNPR News

Adding money to your bar-top slot machines could become easier with a new contactless, cashless system. Officials with UNLV’s International Gaming Institute say this system will also capture data, helping researchers understand gamblers' habits.

KSNV-TV: News 3

The convenience of Apple Pay, enjoyed by iPhone users at stores and online, is being used on a trial basis on bar-top slot machines at several Station Casinos properties, including Durango and Wildfire Anthem.

Onlinecasinosalberta.ca

Researcher from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Discusses the State of AI in Gaming at America’s Largest AI Conference.

Covers

A UNLV study found streamers and vloggers primarily focus on betting strategy and game mechanics, while responsible gambling messages remain uncommon despite being linked to higher audience engagement.

KSNV-TV: News 3

The project leans into the city’s tradition of bold, themed architecture — joining a landscape that already includes a pyramid, a sphere, an Eiffel Tower, a castle, an 1,100-foot tower and a giant blue Gibson Les Paul guitar built where a volcano once stood.

European Gaming

AI is one of the main iGaming industry trends in 2026, but adoption is uneven. A report published by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) International Gaming Institute and KPMG found that 81.5% of gambling companies use generative AI, 66.7% use conversational AI, and 60.5% use predictive AI (2026).

International Gaming Institute Experts

An expert on gaming and society, Bernhard has been featured on CNN, The Discovery Channel, the BBC, and The History Channel.
An expert in global gambling regulation, policy, legislation, licensing, compliance, and enforcement.
A global gaming expert specializing in online settings and AI applications, consumer protection, and payments modernization.
A longtime industry executive and leading international expert on responsible gaming. 
An expert in gambling and esports.

Recent International Gaming Institute Accomplishments

Piyush Puranik, Ph. D., (Postdoctoral Scholar at the International Gaming Institute) presented a poster on "Exploring the relationship between gambling involvement and financial health" at the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) Annual Conference 2026.
UNLV's International Gaming Institute (IGI) hosted the 19th International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking May 26-28, 2026, at Bellagio. This triennial event is the world’s largest research conference in the gambling field and welcomed over 500 attendees from 26 countries, comprised of academics and researchers, industry…
Mana Azizsoltani, Ismael Gómez-Talal, Piyush Puranik, and Kasra Ghaharian (all International Gaming Institute) presented a conference paper titled "Quantifying Luck: Determining the probability of baccarat losses given player bet mix" at the 19th International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking in Las Vegas, Nevada. This…
Mana Azizsoltani, Kasra Ghaharian, and Ismael Gómez-Talal (all International Gaming Institute) published an open access article in the Acta Psychologica titled: "Interpretable behavioral clusters of gamblers through unsupervised learning." This paper identifies various heterogeneous profiles of highly involved gamblers.
Mana Azizsoltani (Hospitality) & Ismael Gomez-Talal (International Gaming Institute) published an article titled 'Building a brief multidomain questionnaire for gambling dual disorder: Psychometric validation and RDoC-based dimensional structure' in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. This study yielded a…
Tiange Xu (International Gaming Institute) was featured in a G3 Newswire interview, "When Gambling Becomes Content," previewing his presentation at the 19th International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking. The Q&A draws on his dissertation research on slot machine vlogs to discuss why responsible gambling messaging in this content…