Will authorize Gambling benefit sustainability? Let’s study!

In the Commonwealth, proponents and critics of casinos have speculated for over a century on whether regulated betting will cause success or disaster. The implementation of a casino, instead, tends to yield a few modestly positive effects, a few modestly negative effects, and no statistically meaningful effects at all in some regions. Specifically, we found that it was correlated with the introduction of casinos:

More workers were spread to more individuals: the casino county population increased 5% faster than the non-casino county population and wages in casino counties expanded 6.7%.

Very efficiently than in non-casino counties. As a result, there came out to be a very minute difference between all the casino and non-casino job rates.

No effect on unemployment rates:

The mix of increased population and employment meant that the casino counties saw no change in their aggregate unemployment rates in general.

Restricted positive effects on some home prices: In casino counties, median house prices increased by around $6,000 more than in non-casino counties. These effects, however, appear to have been concentrated in rural counties that are sparsely inhabited. In more metropolitan casino counties, median house prices were almost equal to those in neighboring non-casino counties.

A small rise in repossessions:

In casino counties, personal bankruptcy rates increased by about 10 percent (from almost 2.98 bankruptcies per 1,000 residents to 3.27 bankruptcies per 1,000 residents). In more populated counties, the growth was marginally larger.

Higher overall crime but less crime each capita: Total crimes registered can be reported.

In casino counties, it is projected to rise marginally, but only because of population growth linked to casinos. Currently, the crime rate (the number of crimes per 1,000 residents) decreased.

No impact on overall sales or spending:

Changes in gross sales and expenditures were not substantially different from changes in non-casino areas in areas where casinos opened in the 1980s and 1990s. Spending on highways, police, and education by the city and county governments was also unchanged.

APPROACH TOWARDS LEGALIZED GAMBLING:

This research reflects on the consequences of an Indian-owned casino at the county level. Instead of the state level, we examine the impacts of casinos at the county level because whole counties are simply too big to distinguish the influences of a casino on results such as jobs or violence. Indian casinos are studied because detailed data is available and because clearance of any casino-style gambling facility may encourage recognized tribes in the state to open their casinos.

Normal statistical methods are used to evaluate shifts in performance in counties housing a casino with counties that do not, such as home rates, crime, and municipal facilities. The unique strategies are intended to isolate the influence of casinos on local communities from the effects of concurrently occurring broader trends.

Population

Casino supporters also suggest that a casino would curb and even reverse demographic and job losses in underprivileged communities by creating economic opportunities. On either hand, casino critics often claim that casino-related problems may prolong the evacuation from troubled areas. On average, there were about 155,000 individuals in counties with casinos, about twice as many as the average U.S. county, which had about 85,000 individuals. Counties with "large" casinos (more than 1,760 slot machines) were home to 479,000 persons, more than five times the total county population.

Casinos tend to target new residents as well. Between 1990 and 2000, the population of casino counties increased about 5 percent faster compared to comparable non-casino counties. In contrast to comparable counties without a casino, "high-population" casino counties expanded about 8 percent faster. However, population increase in "big-slot" counties was not significantly different from growth without casinos in comparable counties.

However, while the population of the Modern London County of Connecticut, which has more slot machines than any other county in the world, increased by 1.5% in the 1990s, that growth was 3% slower than the average of the state.

Settlement

By specifically hiring persons to manage games, serve beverages, retain order, clean toilets, and perform other casino-related activities, casinos may build work. When they draw employers from outside the county who spend money at nearby restaurants, gift stores, or other attractions, casinos may even generate jobs.

As their salaries improve as they spend more on local businesses, workers of local casinos and casino-related firms will also create additional jobs. On the other hand, if residents waste gambling income, they will also invest less money in local enterprises, thus reducing employment. Instead of patronizing local businesses, casinos may also decrease local employment (or at least allocate workers away from individual businesses) if people came to a casino.

We observed inconsistent outcomes. The implementation of a casino leads to a 6.7 percent rise in the number of individuals reporting full-time or part jobs relative to comparable nations. However, the workforce rate, the portion of the population with unemployment, rose by just 1.1 percent due to rapid population growth.

Over the decade, the number of jobs soared 5.7 percent in more populated casino counties, such as those usually located in Massachusetts. The job rate fell by 1.7 percent due to population changes, though.

Of all job results, this effect demonstrated the highest degree of statistical importance by far. Total jobs grew nearly 15 percent higher in counties with larger-capacity casinos relative to comparable counties without casinos. Although there was a 2.8 percent growth in the employment-to-population average in these counties, this association was scarcely statistically important, and it disappeared among the nine large-slot counties that are also large-population counties. Large counties with large casinos, in other words, saw little improvement in their job levels.

In our before-and-after analysis of the 16 biggest and most urban casino counties, casinos still tend to have a significant yet unequal effect on employment. The overall jobs rate within these counties stood three-quarters of a percentage point lower than the overall in their respective states before these casinos opened. The overall jobs surpassed their respective state averages by about 1 percent in the years since at least one casino opened in those counties.

Conversely, the report was not definitive, as shown by the fact that job rates did not surpass state levels in five of those 16 counties since the opening of those casinos. Unemployment Casinos tend to have minor and mixed impacts on the rate of unemployment. The opening of a casino did not cause statistically meaningful changes in unemployment among all counties relative to counties without casinos.

Those who implemented a casino had a 0.5 percent higher unemployment rate for populated counties than those without a casino. Even then, in the large-capacity casino counties, the unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percent relative to comparable counties. And in the nine counties with high communities and large casinos, the unemployment statistics fell by 1.2 percent.

We typically observed a modest decline in unemployment relative to statewide trends in our independent snapshot of the nation's 16 largest-capacity casino counties. In 1990, the unemployment rate in these 16 counties was on average 0.1 percent higher than their respective state averages, before the advent of casino gaming.

Yet in 2001, the counties had overall unemployment rates that were 0.7 percent lower than their respective state rates, after casinos had opened. However, the trend was not uniform, as demonstrated by the fact that since the advent of casinos, the unemployment rate in Connecticut's New London County increased 0.1 percent relative to the nationwide average.

On either hand, if casinos were related to concerns such as corruption, road congestion, and unmet demands for higher public facilities, then-current residents might be willing to sell their homes at cheaper rates. We look at house values over an extended span and in various instances to figure out transient and place-specified real-estate patterns from the greater impact of casinos on how much people enjoy living in a city. We're using the U.S. Census results to equate countywide self-reported 1990 Census median home values with 2000 Census median values.

Mixed findings are provided by this study. Houses in counties where a casino opened in the 1990s were around 2 percent more costly than homes in neighboring non-casino counties in the broadest study, a disparity of about $6,000. Casinos showed no statistically relevant impact on house prices in high-population areas, however.

Likewise, in counties without major casinos, home prices in counties that hosted the biggest casinos did not rise any more than house prices. And property values climbed at a rate that was 2 percent lower than the overall statewide growth in the states where all those counties are situated in our snapshot of the 16 largest and most populous casino counties.

Irresponsibility and Bankruptcy

Communities discussing the introduction of a casino are concerned with societal concerns such as violence and bankruptcy. Individuals will be less likely to commit crimes or file for bankruptcy if casinos raise local wages and jobs dramatically. Problem gamblers, on the other hand, are more likely to experience financial difficulties leading to unemployment and may be more likely to resort to criminal activity as a method of paying off loans and maintaining their habits.

Attempting to turn first to violence, recent large-scale surveys show that some forms of crimes are intensified by casinos. For example, Evans and Topoleski discovered that within four years of opening a casino, the overall amount of violent crime rate registered in a county increased by 9 percent, and property crimes increased by 4.4 percent, mostly auto theft, and larceny.

Our research indicates that while overall crime can be predicted to grow as casinos open, the rise is due to an increased population, not a crime wave generated by a casino. In all counties, looking at FBI indexed crimes per person, we find that the implementation of a casino is correlated with a decrease of 3 recorded crimes per 1,000 persons.

However, the opening of a casino had no statistically meaningful effects on per-capita crime rates in either high-population casino counties or large-casino counties. In the 9 large-population counties that also housed large-capacity casinos, the per-capita crime rate fell 9 crimes per 1,000 people, however.

Previous evidence shows that exposure to casinos contributes to rises in both total gaming and the rate of problem gambling, leading to bankruptcy. For starters, industry reports estimate that 26.6 percent of residents of Metro Boston and 29 percent of Bay Stater's gamble at the casino.

This percentage should be above the 26 percent national average, but well below the 38 percent peak in Connecticut. Citizens of the Commonwealth who gamble at casinos earn an average of 4 visits a year, fewer than the national average of almost 6 trips for casino gamblers and much less than the average of 8 trips a year in Connecticut or almost 23 trips in Nevada.

More regular visits, in comparison, according to the National Opinion Polling Centre, are associated with heavier gambling and more problem gambling, which showed that the existence of a casino within 50 miles was associated with a rise in total per-capita casino spending from $52 to $178 and a doubling in problem and pathological gambling.

And according to the National Gambling Impact Report Committee, for each dollar of their profits, pathological gamblers owed $1.20, compared to 0.60 dollars of debt for non-gamblers.

In comparison, 19% of pathological gamblers reported having declared bankruptcy, compared to 4% of the study's non-gamblers.

We have found that casino proximity appears to increase personal bankruptcies. Pre and post launching of a casino, our study tests the number of personal bankruptcies per 1,000 persons. In the United States, the rate is 2.98 personal bankruptcies per 1,000 persons over this time. Reaching all countries that adopted casinos, the result tends to raise the bankruptcy rate from 2.98 to 3.27 personal bankruptcies per 1,000 persons by around 10 percent. The bankruptcy rate in more populated counties increased to 3.44 bankruptcies per 1,000 residents.

While we examined mostly at bigger casinos, we found no potential statistically meaningful results. If these rises are troubling or not is a question of decision. For example, the data indicates that a casino in Bristol County in southeastern Massachusetts, which had 534,678 people in 2000, would lead to 246 additional bankruptcies each year.

Spending and Sales

Casinos are appealing to many state and local politicians because they aim to provide substantial new funds at a time when severe budget challenges are faced by all levels of government.

Even so, estimating the ultimate fiscal consequences of prospective casinos is challenging. The shifting legal and political terrain around Indian casinos changes the negotiating power between states and tribes and any ancillary arrangements between tribes and localities, and hence the possible terms of revenue-sharing agreements. It is still unknown to what degree, within a greater number of establishments, new casinos in Massachusetts will contribute to further gaming or simply redistribute current patrons and the profits they produce for states and localities.

If gambling stimulates economic growth surrounding gaming operations, localities near casinos might see rising revenues from higher property tax revenues, sales taxes, and casino-owned Indian tribal income share arrangements that are excluded from local taxes. On the other hand, the demand for government services such as police, highways, and schools could be improved by casinos and casino-related expansion.

Casinos had, in effect, relatively little influence on local taxes and consumption. In particular, the overall income and expense of county and local governments in regions where casinos were introduced did not rise (or decrease) at rates that varied substantially from those without casinos. This is valid for counties with a heavy population and even for those with large-capacity casinos.

The assumption that casinos are correlated with substantial population growth without increases in gross income or consumption suggests that for counties that implemented casinos, per capita expenditure and revenue increased more steadily than for those without casinos. That's just what we found when we analyzed region fiscal data on a per-capita basis. Similarly, we found that in all 16 of the largest and most populous casino counties we analyzed in our before and after snapshot, per-capita spending increased more slowly than statewide averages, an average of 10 percent slower growth between 1987 and 1997.

The results should not be taken as suggesting that casinos slow down growth, but they do not support the idea that casinos encourage growth or allow local municipalities to invest more in services or decrease local property taxes. We have also investigated whether casinos enable city councils to spend more on some programs or less on others.

Roads and Highways

The increased casino-related traffic could bring a greater burden on local roads. For example, the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments reported that between 1980 and 1996, traffic on Connecticut Route 2 near Foxwoods increased more than six-fold. Similarly, since the casino opened, the nearby town of Ledyard's Planning Officer has estimated a fourfold rise in traffic on roads in their jurisdiction. We analyzed the impact of adding a casino on the combined county and local spending within a given county on highways and other transportation projects. We did not notice any statistically important impact of casinos on transportation spending at the regional level.

Police

To ensure public safety, casinos may place extra burdens on localities. For example, following the opening of the Foxwoods casino in 1992, the local town of Preston reported experiencing a five-fold rise in annual emergency response calls. Casino-related traffic concerns were cited by the nearby town of Ledyard's Planning Chief as causing the city to raise its full-time police department from 14 to 19 officers. And police spending soared from around $20 million in 1987 to more than $37 million in 1997 in New London County, home to the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, a 91 percent rise that outpaced the 78 percent increase in police spending in areas across Connecticut.

However, our study of city and county budgets did not reveal local and county councils' investment in policing in counties with casinos outpacing non-casino counties. None of the larger county samples revealed any statistically meaningful impact of casinos on police spending in the region. Even if we look just at "large casino" counties, this is valid (those with casinos that had more than 1,760 slot machines).

Enhanced nightclub traffic could make local roads more burdensome. The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, for instance, noted that transportation on Connecticut Route 2 near Foxwoods increased more than six-fold between 1980 and 1996.

Likewise, the neighboring city of Ledyard's Planning Officer has approximated a fourfold increase in traffic on roads in their jurisdiction since the casino started opening. We assessed the effects of adding a casino mostly on the cumulative county and local expenditure on highways and other transport projects within such a formed due. At the stage of the region, we find no statistically significant consequences of casinos on transit expenditure.

Educational Curriculum

Both the need for education and the money available to pay for it will be influenced by casinos. If, for instance, casinos recruit staff of families, they can stimulate increased demand for schools and spending on them. And if casinos raise increased local authority taxes, they could contribute to a rise in school spending per capita. On the other hand, if casinos require demands for other public resources, such as increased security, or contribute to economic losses that decrease tax collections, school investment (total or per capita) will fall behind in the counties that create casinos.

In order to see how casinos, impact local education spending, we reviewed statistics on improvements in county education expenditure at the regional level, both as totals and in terms of per-pupil expenditure between 1987 and 1997. We split overall expenses by the number of pupils to compare shifts in per-pupil expenditure.

We equate counties that built a casino to those that did not between 1987 and 1997. In addition, since state education policies vary widely, we also compared the change in education spending in casino counties with the change in the other non-casino counties of their state.

Counties that introduced casinos, calculated on a per-pupil basis, increased their school spending by 12 percent less per pupil than in counties that did not introduce casinos. However, when casino counties in the same state are linked to non-casino counties, differences tend to vanish. This means that the bad consequences are due to the fact that casinos are more likely to be built in states where school funding has risen more steadily than in the entire country.

When we look at large-capacity casino counties (with over 1,760 slot machines), the detrimental impact even disappears. Education spending per student rose by almost the same rate in such counties as in non-large-casino counties. Since large-capacity counties expanded faster than non-large-casino counties, this suggests that average education spending in large-casino counties was 8 percent higher than in non-large casino counties.

IN A NUTSHELL:

For much more than a decade, supporters and opponents of casinos in the Commonwealth have debated about whether legalized gambling would yield prosperity or catastrophe. Our analysis shows that casinos at the county level would have relatively minor impacts, where every favorable or unfavorable impact is likely to be concentrated. (See table, page 8) On the positive side, they can create more workers, and they are therefore expected to attract more people. Conversely, since jobs and population increases are almost identical, in regions with new casinos, unemployment levels are not likely to change dramatically.

On the opposite hand, net crime may intensify, but the increase appears to be due primarily to the increase in the population. Bankruptcies are projected to rise in counties with casinos, but the total number of people affected by the increase is reasonably small. Most interestingly, maybe, casinos appear to have little or no effect on home values (at least in populous counties) or police or road spending as a whole. It does not appear to impact per-pupil school spending.

Such findings do not imply that casino gaming is a negligible issue, just that there are inadequate rationales for determining whether to refuse or approve casinos in Massachusetts for housing, finances, and crime. Policymakers, however, when determining whether to legalize casino gaming in the state, must consider other problems. This may include issues such as whether (and how) casinos would affect the character of the Commonwealth, whether relying on gaming profits to finance public programs is troublesome, and whether allowing limited casino gambling would undermine the ability of the state to regulate gambling in the future.

Most of the research suggests that casinos will only have relatively small impacts at the county level, where any positive or negative effects are likely to be localized. Our study shows that although total crime can be forecast to expand when casinos open, the rise is due to the increased population, not a crime wave created by a casino. The emergence of a casino and sports betting online does seem to produce a few modestly positive impacts, a few moderately negative impacts, and no statistically meaningful effects whatsoever in several areas. You need to take an in depth view for a clear understanding.