A 2016 University of Amherst study shows that almost 80 percent of the revenue generated by Plainridge Park Casino, the Bay State’s first casino to open, in June 2015, came from state residents.
The study: “Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts,” showed that 11.4 percent came from the town of Plainville or nearby towns, while 66.5 percent came from other Massachusetts cities. Nineteen percent came from out of state.
The data was presented last week to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. It was the second of two presentations made to the commission.
The study and its periodic reports to the panel are baked into the law that set up the casinos.
Those were patrons who had previously traveled out of state, mainly to Rhode Island or the two Indian casinos in Connecticut. That means that the casino is doing what lawmakers had hoped when they voted in 2011 to expand gaming: to keep money home. About $100,000 was “recaptured” during the casino’s first year of operation, said the study.
Lead researcher Mark Melnik in a statement said, “We were able to use the survey results to estimate that the majority of the money spent at PPC would have been spent out of state if gambling had never expanded in Massachusetts.”
Last month Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby remarked that the data so far showed that the law was working as intended.
The comprehensive study was the first of its kind to be authorized by a state government and is now considered the gold standard for gaming studies. It is also multi-year and will continue to follow not only who is using the state’s casinos, but how gaming is affecting its host communities and the economic impacts on the populace as a whole.
Commissioner Enrique Zuniga commented, “No other gaming commission in the country has this type of information at their fingertips to inform policy and make data-driven decisions.”
Another researcher on the team, Rachel Volberg, added, “The survey is a tool that allows us to collect data from patrons about where they come from and how much they spend, which is important for understanding the economic impacts of the casino.”
The survey of 479 visitors identified the average casino customer as older, white, well educated and with an annual household income of from $50,000-$100,000. It showed that 87 percent of players were slots players, while 12 percent preferred electronic versions of traditional table games such as blackjack and roulette. Plainridge Park is a racino, so 8 percent of the revenue came from live or simulcast horse racing.
MGM Springfield
MGM Springfield has revealed some of the details and vendors that the casino will boast when it opens in less than a year in the third largest city in Massachusetts.
They will include Candlepin bowling, a variation of bowling played mainly in parts of Canada and New England, said MGM Springfield General Manager Alex Dixon. The bowling variant will be offered along with standard bowling, he told the Republican.
“If it’s what your local community wants, it just doesn’t make sense not to include those things,” he said. He noted that the company plans to open the first eight stories of the building in January. These will administrative offices, he said.
The ninth through the 11th floors will be dedicated to a school for table game dealers run cooperative with two local community colleges. A pre-employment office will open at the Colvest Building, which is near the casino’s main footprint.
Dixon confirmed that the casino plans to buy locally grown, sustainable produce, and said that this helps farms and produces higher quality fare at casino restaurants.
