Regional impacts of casino availability on gambling problems: Evidence from the Canadian Community Health Survey

摘要

Casinos are generally recognized as significant generators of economic impact and tourism, but access is typically controlled in a perceived effort to reduce social harms, particularly those from gambling disorders. Using data from a representative sample of 50,048 Canadians across four provinces, this study empirically tests theory of the regional impacts of casino availability on participation in gambling and the development of gambling related problems. Increased exposure to casinos is found to be related to increases in both participation and problem gambling risk, despite the observation that all four provinces recently experienced casino expansion and population-wide declines in problem gambling prevalence rates. The estimates are robust to broad controls for health and demographic risk factors. The findings suggest that hospitality/tourism planners should consider wider expansion of gambling paired with increased investment in responsible and problem gambling programs, to maximize economic impacts while accelerating social adaptation to gambling related harms.