On October 15, 2026, the kick-off meeting for the BEHAZARD project—Behavioral Interventions to Reduce the Use of Illegal Online Gambling Platforms—took place. Representatives from all participating organizations attended: the Institute of Economic Research of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Institute for Financial Policy of the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, the Institute of Public Policy at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava, and the Gambling Regulatory Authority.
The main topics included preparation for the first online experiment, the questionnaire methodology, the selection of a research agency, and the procedure for addressing the research´s ethical aspects. The goal of the project is to estimate the extent of the use of illegal online gambling platforms in Slovakia and to test behavioral interventions that redirect players to the legal market. The BEHAZARD project (ZM-2026-18) is funded by the National Bank of Slovakia Foundation´s grant program.
