Problem gambling is not a result of new casinos. Casinos also don’t cause more crime.
The first conclusion was drawn from one of the periodic reports created for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort Study (MAGIC).
The second conclusion about crime generation came from consultant and crime analyst Christopher Bruce, specifically hired to study that connection.
This five-year UMass study looked at thousands of participants in five “waves” that looked at many factors connected with the new casinos that opened in the Bay State. Participants are paid a small stipend for their help.
Factors considered include age, income and substance consumption, which can also factor into a person’s resolve in dealing with an addiction.
Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) Chairwoman Cathy Judd-Stein called the study the most comprehensive such study done in the U.S. The study, begun in 2013, was completed in 2019 before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic closed casinos.
It included the impacts of the Plainridge Park Casino, MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor, although four of the five waves were completed before the Springfield casino opened in 2018.
One of the five members of the research team, Rob Williams, a professor of health sciences at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, observed that, despite popular assumptions that problem gambling is sparked by new casinos, the data do not support that. It showed that nearly 20 percent of those who participated tended toward problem gaming, most eventually move toward the safer, recreational gambling.
Williams said, “This shows the transition to problem gambling is not a given. It’s like getting your hand burned, and going back to a safer place.”
The commission’s director of research and problem gambling, Mark Vander Linden, said his group pays close attention to the at-risk players. “This is a really important group. It’s not only a volatile group, it’s a large group,” he said.
His group will consider potential regulations for regulating casino advertising, for example. “Most of our attention has been about (targeting) underage advertising,” he said. “But, no longer are we talking about billboards, radio or newspaper ads. Much more is now about social media, whose algorithms don’t care what neighborhood you’re in,” Vander Linden said.
Williams added, “Too much stock is put into a certain form of gambling that others. An alcoholic may have a preferred form of beverage, but the problem is not because of a preferred form.”
One interesting statistic, said Williams, is that only 7.8 percent of those with a gambling addictions say they want help, and only about a third of those actually get it. “Most problem gamblers don’t want to give it up. They want to think they can rein it in,” he said.
The Christopher Bruce report studied whether new casinos cause more crime in the region around them. It concluded, “only a few crimes increased in surrounding agencies during this period. While some of these increases have possible links to MGM, there is no general consistency across the surrounding agencies and very little definitive proof of a casino connection among specific offenders.”
Bruce added, “Despite hypotheses from before the casino opened, there is so far no sign that the presence of the casino has increased crime or calls for service at hotels, restaurants, bars, and gas stations … nor has it increased activity specifically within the radiuses of highway exits to and from the facility.”
He said it was likely that the MGM Springfield casino contributed to a small increase in driving under the influence; an increase in shoplifting, purse snatching, fraud and similar crimes at 24-hour stores near the casino, as well as increases in traffic-related complaints nearby.
Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who was a big supporter for bringing a casino to his city, reacted to the report: “The report shows it’s negligible. MGM continues to create direct positive effects and spinoffs for Springfield. Overall crime is currently down over 20 percent, except for the repeat violent criminal offenders (felony assaults), which our Springfield Police Department are continually arresting, but our ‘revolving door’ court system continues to let them out to perpetuate more crimes.”
