The Plainridge Park Casino, which opened in June 2015, did not cannibalize state lottery sales from the area near the casino—according to a study that was commissioned by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
The state legislature when it authorized casino gaming in the Bay State was concerned that it not hurt the most successful lottery in the nation, whose profits are disbursed among the state’s municipalities.
The casino sells lottery tickets, and those lottery sales have increased 25 percent since the facility first opened. The tickets are sold at the casino’s vending machines and gift shop. This suggests that casinos and the lottery can be symbiotic.
The study was done by Mark Nichols, an economics professor based at the University of Nevada, Reno. It concluded that lottery sales and local aid increased slightly with $998 million going to cities and towns. Some individual vendors had volatile sales but for the most part the average has remained steady. Sales did not fall after the casino opened, either statewide, or near the casino. The data came from sales figures provided by the lottery.
Massachusetts Lottery Executive Director Michael Sweeney said the news was good and that he was “cautiously optimistic that this trend will continue.” He is more worried about the effect that the opening of the MGM Springfield and the Wynn Boston Harbor will have on lottery sales, since, besides slot machines, they will also have table games.
Another study for the commission concluded that Plainridge did not significantly increase crime when it opened.
Online Gaming
Meanwhile state Senator Bruce Tarr has introduced a bill that would allow those casinos to offer online games.
The bill is a “shell” bill, which means that the details need to be filled out. The bill would allow casinos to apply for licenses to “conduct gaming operations via the internet, provided that such operations do not include or reflect gaming mechanisms operated by the state lottery program of those simulating or resembling slot machines.” This would imply that the internet games could be games such as poker, craps and roulette.
Last year the legislature created an ad hoc Special Commission on Online Gaming, Fantasy Sports Gaming and Daily Fantasy Sports” whose task is to study all online gaming except for the lottery and recommend an omnibus bill to the lawmakers this summer. Tarr’s bill is jumping the gun a little on that.
Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby is on that commission. He has been calling for an omnibus bill that would include fantasy sports and online poker for some time now.
