Meet Matthew Rockloff – gambling researcher 

Professor Matthew Rockloff is one of Australia’s most recognised academic voices in gambling research, psychology, and responsible gambling policy. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Florida Atlantic University (1999) and an M.S. in economics from Texas A&M University, which gives him a rare dual perspective on gambling – both from a behavioural science angle and an economic modelling standpoint. Based at Central Queensland University (CQUniversity) in Bundaberg, he has spent more than two decades building one of the southern hemisphere’s most productive research labs dedicated entirely to the study of gambling behaviour, harm, and prevention. His work informs how Australian regulators, governments, and industry bodies approach the challenge of keeping gambling safe and transparent for millions of players across the country.

Academic background and education

Matthew Rockloff’s academic journey spans three universities and two decades of graduate study, moving from economics into psychology – a combination that turned out to be perfectly suited to gambling research.

Qualification	Institution	Year	Specialisation
B.A. Economics	University of California	1989	General economics
M.S. Economics	Texas A&M University	1994	Applied microeconomics
Ph.D. Psychology	Florida Atlantic University	1999	Social psychology
Post-doctoral fellow	University of Nevada, Reno	2001	Gambling & behaviour

After completing his doctorate, he took a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Nevada, Reno – a location that placed him at the heart of one of the world’s most gambling-intensive environments. That early immersion in a city built around casinos shaped the applied, real-world focus that has defined his career ever since. He joined CQUniversity in the early 2000s and has remained there, building the Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory (EGRL) into a nationally recognised research institution.

The Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory (EGRL)

Matthew Rockloff is the head of the EGRL at CQUniversity – a lab that sits at the intersection of population research, clinical psychology, and public health. The lab employs dozens of researchers and coordinates some of the most rigorous gambling studies in the Asia-Pacific region. It is not affiliated with any gambling operator or commercial interest, which gives its findings a level of independence that is rare in this field.

The EGRL’s work covers a wide range of topics:

• Problem gambling prevalence across Australian states and territories
• The psychological triggers that increase risky gambling behaviour
• The effectiveness of responsible gambling messaging and warnings
• Gambling harm experienced by families and communities, not just the individual gambler
• Online gambling trends, particularly the shift to mobile-first betting platforms
• Sports betting harm in young adults aged 18-25
• Gambling-like mechanics in video games and their risks for adolescents

In 2024, the EGRL was commissioned to conduct the Survey on Gambling in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – the first such survey since the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed how Australians gamble. Professor Rockloff noted at the time that the shift to smartphones as the primary gambling platform was one of the most significant changes observed, warranting an entirely new survey methodology based on mobile phone numbers rather than landlines.

Key research themes and contributions

Over his career, Rockloff has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and contributed to landmark national reports on gambling harm in Australia. His research is cited extensively in policy documents, government reviews, and academic literature internationally, with his Google Scholar profile recording close to 7,000 citations as of 2026.

The four psychological risk factors

One of Rockloff’s most widely referenced contributions is the identification of four psychological factors that increase a person’s vulnerability to problem gambling. These factors are:

1. Excitement – heightened arousal that lowers inhibitions around risk
2. Esteem – gambling as a way to boost self-worth or social standing
3. Excess – a tendency toward impulsive or disinhibited behaviour
4. Escape – using gambling to avoid stress, anxiety, or other emotional pain

This framework, sometimes called the “4 E’s,” has been used by researchers, clinicians, and harm minimisation practitioners across Australia to identify at-risk players and design more targeted interventions.

Safer gambling messaging

In recent years, Rockloff has been heavily involved in developing and testing independent safer gambling messages for Australian and international audiences. A 2024 collaboration with researchers from the University of Bristol and other institutions tested new messaging such as “Chances are you’re about to lose” with UK and US betting samples, finding that independently designed messages outperformed the vague, industry-standard phrases like “Gamble responsibly” that players have long since tuned out. This line of work has direct implications for online casinos in Australia and how they communicate risk to their customers.

Population-level harm research

Rockloff and his team consistently highlight that gambling harm in Australia is not just an individual problem – it is a public health issue on the scale of alcohol harm. Research from the EGRL estimates that roughly one in six Australians is negatively affected by gambling, either directly or through the behaviour of someone close to them. Australia remains the world’s highest per-capita gambling loss nation, with adults losing approximately A$1,527 each in the 2022-23 financial year – the highest figure recorded since 2001. These findings have directly influenced federal and state policy decisions, including restrictions on wagering advertising during daytime television and mandatory self-exclusion registers for electronic gaming machines (pokies).

The Ig Nobel Prize and the crocodile study

No overview of Matthew Rockloff’s career would be complete without mentioning perhaps the most memorable experiment in Australian gambling research history. In 2010, Rockloff and his colleague Nancy Greer designed a study to test whether heightened excitement – one of the four risk factors – could prime people to gamble more recklessly. Rather than using bland lab stimuli, they recruited participants at a crocodile farm near Bundaberg and had them handle a live crocodile before playing a simulated pokie machine. The results confirmed the hypothesis: physical excitement from the crocodile encounter caused participants to place riskier bets. The study earned them the 2017 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics – a prestigious (if tongue-in-cheek) international award presented by actual Nobel laureates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that celebrates science which “first makes you laugh, then makes you think.”

Rockloff has spoken about the study with characteristic warmth and clarity: the goal was never to be silly but to demonstrate that great science does not have to be dry, and that surprising experimental designs can reveal important truths. The crocodile study has since been widely cited in discussions of environmental priming and risk-taking behaviour.

Awards and recognition

Matthew Rockloff’s contributions to research and university teaching have been recognised repeatedly over the years. Below is a summary of his major accolades:

Year	Award
2017	Ig Nobel Prize in Economics (with Nancy Greer)
2014	Top 15 UniJobs Lecturers of the Year – ranked #6 in Australia from 4,000+ nominees
2014	CQUniversity Student Voice Commendation, Distance Educator of the Year
2013	Top 15 UniJobs Lecturers of the Year – ranked #4 in Australia
2012	Top 15 UniJobs Lecturers of the Year – ranked #10 in Australia
2012	CQUniversity Bundaberg Prize for Excellence in Research
2011	Top 15 UniJobs Lecturers of the Year – ranked #11 in Australia
2011	Bundaberg Campus Award for Excellence in Research
2010	Faculty Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
1998-99	Aurel B. Newell Fellow (twice awarded)
1998	Jack Walker Scholar

He is also a lifetime member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society and a member of the ODE Honors Society at Texas A&M, recognising academic achievement at both graduate institutions.

Influence on Australian gambling policy

Perhaps the most meaningful measure of Rockloff’s impact is the degree to which his research has filtered into real-world policy. The EGRL has provided evidence to state and federal government inquiries that contributed to the following regulatory changes in Australia:

• A ban on wagering advertising during general television viewing hours
• Restrictions on promotions and inducements offered to online bettors
• Mandatory limit-setting tools and gambling information messaging for online betting platforms
• Youth-focused educational initiatives targeting gambling awareness in schools
• The introduction of the national self-exclusion register for pokies venues
• Proposed mandatory warnings on video games containing gambling-like mechanics

For Australian players who use online casinos and betting platforms in 2026, many of the consumer protections they take for granted – the ability to set deposit limits, opt out of promotions, or access in-app harm warnings – exist in part because of research led by Rockloff and his colleagues.

Matthew Rockloff as an author at Level Up Casino

Matthew Rockloff’s role at Level Up Casino is that of an expert author and reviewer, not a promoter. His contributions bring an evidence-based perspective to content covering responsible gambling, the psychology of casino games, and what Australian players should know before they deposit their A$ at any platform. He approaches these topics the same way he approaches his academic research – with intellectual honesty, curiosity, and a commitment to accuracy that comes from decades of working in a field where getting the details wrong has real consequences for real people. His writing is accessible and direct, without talking down to the reader or obscuring important information behind jargon.

Readers who follow his author page will find practical, well-sourced content that reflects the current state of gambling knowledge in Australia – informed by the same research that shapes national policy. That combination of credibility, experience, and genuine curiosity about how and why people gamble makes him a distinctive and valuable voice in the online casino space.