Gambling

John Anderson, the Baird Family Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, serves as the executive director of the Central Plains Research Data Center (CPRDC), located at UNL and part of the federal statistical research data network. He is an expert in housing economics, urban economics, tax policy and public finance. Anderson’s academic research and policy advising have been published in more than one hundred journal articles, books, book chapters, and government reports. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics at Western Michigan University and his Ph.D. in economics at Claremont Graduate University. He is an economist and an adviser to public policymakers in the fields of public finance, fiscal reform, and tax policy. Updated 12/12/23

Jeffrey Stevens heads the Adaptive Decision Making Laboratory in the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research integrates cognitive and evolutionary perspectives to study decision making in humans and other animals. He holds a Ph.D. ecology, evolution and behavior from the University of Minnesota in 2002. He held a post-doctoral research fellowship in the Psychology Department at Harvard University and was a research scientist in the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. In one recent study, he examined why some primate species wait for bigger rewards, while others grab what they can get immediately. Another revealed a new way to predict whether humans will pursue immediate gratification or wait for a bigger reward.

Aaron Duncan, director of the speech & debate program and a lecturer in communication studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has studied how gambling and the game of poker reflect the changing nature of American society and the myth of the self-made man in the American Dream.

Brian Petrotta, an experienced professional in sports public relations and broadcasting, was recently named an inaugural ESPN Fellow to study responsible betting messaging during sports broadcasts. He also is working with UNL Campus Recreation on a National Center for Responsible Gaming grant to study responsible gaming messages targeting college students. Petrotta's 2023 article, “From Prohibition to Promotion: Framing and Sourcing the Legalization of Sports Betting in the U.S,” reviewed newspaper reports between 1991 and 2018 covering significant sports betting news. Published in the journal Communication & Sport, the article’s findings included that elected officials and professional sports representatives used newspaper reporting to shift the narrative and promote sports betting. Petrotta has studied related topics such as legalized sports betting and the media; public relations in sport; esports on college campuses; and other emerging issues in sports media. Petrotta’s research has appeared in Communication & Sport, International Gambling Studies, Journal of Sports Media (a University of Nebraska Press publication), and Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He currently serves as research chair of the Sports Communication Interest Group for Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC). (Updated November 2024.)