Despite fears expressed in 2011 when Massachusetts lawmakers were first contemplating authorizing casinos, the Bay State’s lottery proceeds have not been affected. Patrons of such casinos as Plainridge Park slots parlor or the recently opened Encore Boston Harbor are not the same people who stop in convenience stores to buy scratchers.
An owner of such a convenience store last week told the Boston Globe that for years he heard that the Encore, which is two and a half miles away would harm his lottery sales. “Everybody was talking bad about it,” he said. “I was thinking positive. Because I knew more people would come to town. More crowds.”
Turned out he was right, and his lottery sales have actually risen 15 percent over last year. The same is true of another store he owns that is closer to the Encore.
It’s not just the Encore. No stores next to the other three casinos in the state, nor any stores anywhere in the state, have seen lottery product sale declines. This draws a sigh of relief from municipalities, which all get subsidies from the lottery.
Lottery sales in 2019 increased last year to $5.4 billion, up $19 million from 2018, a 0.4 percent change.
One reason may be that state law requires casinos to sell lottery tickets, something they have been quite successful at doing. Michael R. Sweeney, executive director of the Massachusetts Lottery Commission, told the Globe, “I don’t think it’s had any marginal impact, either negatively or positively.”
There is actually very little in the way of academic studies for how lotteries and casinos relate to one another, according to Victor A. Matheson a professor at College of the Holy Cross, whose studies both. It’s possible that casino players and lottery purchasers are different people and that it may be possible to increase revenues by appealing to both, but in different ways and with different products.
Or they may be the same people. Patrick Kelly, a professor at Providence College who researches casino gaming, told the Boston Globe, “Even if somebody might be inclined to go to a casino, if somebody’s buying a couple lottery tickets a week, they still are going to buy a couple of lottery tickets a week.”
But that could also increase the number of problem gamblers, he said. Nevertheless, if any state is in a position to come up with answers to such questions it is Massachusetts. It has the most extensive ongoing study of the effects of casinos and gaming on communities, the lottery, economy and society in the U.S. and possibly the world. And it’s paid for from casino revenues and conducted under the auspices of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
Among questions researchers are asking is whether casinos affect individual retailers and whether those who play both lottery and casino games might be more likely to have gambling problem.
The research director Mark Vander Linden of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said he is not aware of anyone doing a similar study. It is looking at detailed sales data from retailers near the Plainridge Park slots parlor that opened five years. So far, there doesn’t appear to be any effect. The study found no “obvious pattern between lottery sales growth and proximity to the casino.”
The research also found no measurable change in t numbers of gamblers who had filed for divorce or bankruptcy.
There are no figures yet for the effects on the lottery of the MGM Springfield that opened in 2018 or the Encore Boston Harbor, which opened last June.
Lottery sales in Massachusetts were held down last year by declines in ticket sales for the large multistate games. In 2018 those sales had been increased by big jackpots. For example, Mega Millions ticket sales fell 62 percent in the first half of 2019 over the year before.
Sweeney, like previous lottery directors, is more worried about the effects of technology on the lottery. Bay State lawmakers are talking about legalizing sports betting, which might include online sportsbook, which is the most profitable because it appeals to millennials, who use their mobile devices to take part in almost every facet of life.
To compete in such a market, the lottery will need to be able to sell tickets online, says Sweeney, something the legislature has so far resisted because retailers oppose it.
