Socioeconomic Impacts

Question 1

What is the current global gambling revenue?

Answer 1

Almost 450 billion dollars.

Question 2

What are the largest contributors to global gambling revenue? (types of gambling)

Answer 2

Lotteries–>Casinos–>Gaming Machines–>betting–>US Indian Gaming–>other

Question 3

What is the current trend for net revenue from gambling in Canada recently?

Answer 3

Net revenue from government-run gambling has leveled off recently

Question 4

What are the 3 largest individual gambling markets?

Answer 4

• Macau
• Las Vegas
• Singapore

Question 5

who are the 3 largest contributers to global gambling revenue?

Answer 5

1 - US (50%)
2 - Asia Pacific (30%)
3 - EMEA

Question 6

what is the problem with most prior research on socioeconomic gambling impacts?

Answer 6

its either inconsistent, inadequate, biased, or all three

Question 7

Why does gambling research end up corrupted?

Answer 7

funders for this type of research often have a vested interest in a certain outcome.

Question 8

Where should socioeconomic research funding come from?

Answer 8

• independent agencies without a vested interest in the outcome

Question 9

What are some economic indices to gambling?

Answer 9

• government revenue
• public services
• regulatory costs
• infrastructure value
• infrastructure costs
• business starts and failures
• business revenue
• personal income
• property values

Question 10

What are some social indices linked to gambling?

Answer 10

• problem gambling
• crime
• employment
• socioeconomic inequality
• leisure activity
• public attitudes
• quality of life
• social capital
• values

Question 11

What metric is best used to capture economic changes from gambling? what metric is best for social changes?

Answer 11

• MONEY for ECONOMIC

- %CHANGES in divorce, crime, suicide, etc. for SOCIAL

Question 12

What is the problem with traditional cost-benefit analysis for gambling? or anything for that matter?

Answer 12

• It is difficult to apply $$$ to Social Changes.

- requires everything to be a cost or benefit, some things are just changes

Question 13

what is the best method for measuring socioeconomic changes from gambling?

Answer 13

• a profile of impacts with several different indices

- this approach makes the overall impact depend on the relative importance of each index

Question 14

What 3 ways can gambling represent a true economic benefit to an economy?

Answer 14

• influx of money/assets from outside jurisdiction
• increases value of existing assets
• increases utilization of existing capital

Question 15

What is the problem with pre-post studies on gambling? how do we avoid this?

Answer 15

• they ignore the multitude of economic and social forces at work that are not because of gambling
• use a economically, socially, and demographically similar community as a control that did not receive a new gambling venue.

Question 16

What are some reliable economic impacts from the introduction of new gambling?

Answer 16

• increase in government revenue
• increase in public services
• increase in regulatory costs (usually much less than the revenue that government gains from gambling)
• construction of new gambling venues reliably adds to physical assets and wealth of a community
• increase in infrastructure costs * usually offset by revenue and increased infrastructure value
• increase in business revenue, new starts, and employment * local patronage has negative impacts on a wide range of other businesses

Question 17

What are some reliable social impacts from increased gambling?

Answer 17

• increase in PG for the first few years
• decrease in illegal gambling
• no real impact on crime
• lower income people consistently spend proportionally more of their income on gambling.
• offers entertainment value and additional leisure option to general populace
• positive impacts for North American Aboriginal communities with successful casinos.

Question 18

What are government and business leaders attitudes towards gambling generally like? What about the general populace?

Answer 18

• government and business leaders have positive attitudes about gambling impacts
• general populace tends to have negative opinions about gambling impacts
• males, young people, and heavy gamblers have more positive opinions

Question 19

What are 9 variables that mediate gambling impacts?

Answer 19

• size of change in gambling availablity
• type of gambling introduced
• length of time gambling has already been available
• local vs out-of-region patrons
• strength of policies in place to mitigate negative effects
• baseline levels of community impoverishment
• length of time impacts are examined
• how gambling revenue is distributed

Question 20

What is the impact of gambling on any given jurisdiction?

Answer 20

• ranges from small to large
• depends on jurisdiction
• for the most part, MIXED
• **- positive economic impacts offset by a range of mild to moderate negative social impacts.

Question 21

SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS OF GAMBLING
 Socioeconomic research funding needs to come from independent agencies without a vested interest in the outcome.
 A wide net must be cast to capture and report all potential economic and social variables that may be impacted.
 Need to use a metric that best captures the impact. Money is most appropriate for most economic changes, as well as social changes with clear monetary costs (e.g., police time, treatment cost)
 However, other social impacts will be best captured and described in more straightforward ways (e.g., % change in divorces, suicides, crime, etc.).
 Monetary changes with clear ‘costs’ and ‘gains’ can be combined into an aggregate measure (classical CBA). Other changes (e.g., % increase in crime; % increase in suicides) are best reported as they are and NOT combined.
 End result is a PROFILE OF IMPACTS with several different indices

Answer 21

 Socioeconomic analyses should examine the geographic ‘magnitude’ of the impact and to estimate both community-specific costs/benefits, and macro, regional impacts. Patronage origin provides some guidance about how large a geographic range to study.
 Need to document prior gambling opportunities and socioeconomic effects for several years before the opening of the new gambling venue as well as for several years after.
 Use both pre-post and control community comparisons.
 The best impact studies are ones that over sample subpopulations most at risk for being impacted so that these subpopulation impacts can also be examined.
 Need to qualify results as being specific to the type of gambling
 Results need to be qualified as being specific to the jurisdiction studied.
 Results need to be qualified as being specific to the time period studied.
 Results need to speak both to changes from baseline and changes relative to what the current situation would likely be without gambling.