gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

Origin of Net Gambling Revenue by Geography
The last thing to investigate is where the gambling revenue is coming from in terms of
geographic location. This is also one of the more important considerations in determining the
economic value of gambling, as one way in which gambling can potentially produce a clear
economic gain is when the bulk of the revenue/patronage comes from outside the jurisdiction
(i.e., Alberta).
Out-of-Province Revenue
As a previous analysis has documented (page 94), although Alberta receives many tourists, very
few people come here for the purposes of gambling. Alberta is not marketed as a gambling
destination and there are no casinos in the primary Alberta destinations that attract tourists
(i.e., Banff, the Rocky Mountain National Parks, Rocky Mountain ski resorts, Dinosaur Provincial
Park). 48 Rather, 23 out of Alberta’s 27 casinos and RECs are located in Alberta’s major urban
centres and draw their patronage from these cities (i.e., Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer,
Lethbridge, St. Albert, Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray, and Grande Prairie). It is also the case
that our main neighbors and primary source of visitors (British Columbia, Saskatchewan) both
have many casinos themselves, the largest of which is as large or larger than any Alberta
casino. 49,50
That being said, some of the tourists who visit Alberta decide to also visit an Alberta casino
during their trip and spend some money. To recap the analysis reported earlier in this paper,
Alberta Tourism indicates there were 2.4 million people who visited Alberta from other parts of
Canada in 2008 and another 1.6 million people who visited from the United States and
overseas, with the average length of stay being 11.7 days for overseas visitors, 4.7 days for U.S.
visitors, and approximately 5 days for other-province visitors. The Travel Survey of Residents of
Canada (TSRC) documents that 5.4% of other-province visitors reported going to a casino while
in Alberta in 2007, and 4.8% reported the same in 2008. Thus, if we assume that roughly 5% of
all visitors visit a casino in any given year, then the best estimate of the number of non-Alberta
residents who have visited an Alberta casino in recent years is about 200,000 people per year.
Even if all of these 200,000 people went to a casino twice while they were here and spent twice
as much as Alberta residents, it is clear this would still represent a tiny fraction of Alberta casino
48 The exceptions to this are the casinos in Calgary that out-of-province visitors could patronize during the annual
Calgary Stampede.
49 The largest casinos in Alberta are in the range of 80,000 square feet with 700 to 850 slot machines (Table 15).
This is smaller than found in most other provinces (i.e., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec), but larger than
the casinos in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
50 There are a few chartered bus services to Alberta casinos from places such as Regina and Swift Current in
Saskatchewan. However, these services are offset by a few chartered bus services from Alberta to British
Columbia and Saskatchewan casinos.
112