gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

Several factors influence the percentage of provincial government revenue that each province
derives from gambling. The primary factor is the amount of money their citizens spend on
gambling. Table 30 displays the strong relationship between percentage of total revenue
derived from gambling, and provincial gambling revenue per adult (r = .85, p = .002, N = 10).
It is beyond the scope of this report to elucidate all the factors responsible for per capita
gambling expenditure. However, one of the more obvious and important ones is the availability
of gambling, especially the forms of gambling that garner the largest revenue (i.e., EGMs). As
seen in Table 29, following the rapid introduction of casinos in most provinces in the late 1990s
(later for British Columbia) the provinces and territories with casinos (in the top half of the
table: Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Quebec) have
tended to derive their budgets from gambling to a greater extent than provinces and territories
without casinos (listed in the lower half of the table: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island,
Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut). It is
important to recognize that most of these latter jurisdictions nonetheless still have EGMs in
bars and lounges. The lowest percentage of government revenue derived from gambling
occurs in the jurisdictions without any EGMs at all: Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, and
Nunavut.
A second important factor related to per capita gambling expenditure concerns available
income to spend on gambling (see Table 30). The correlation in Table 30 between average per
adult gambling revenue and median after-tax income in each province is quite strong: r = .65, p
= .04 (2 tail), N = 10.
Table 30: Comparison of Provincial Government Gambling Revenue.
Gambling Revenue as
% of Total Provincial
Revenue in 2007
Gambling Revenue
per Adult 18+ in 2008
135
Median After-Tax
Income in 2007 for
Economic Families (2+)
Alberta 6.2% $790 $75,300
British Columbia 5.6% $540 $63,300
Saskatchewan 5.8% $830 $59,900
Manitoba 5.3% $690 $58,300
Ontario 4.8% $465 $65,900
Nova Scotia 3.9% $420 $54,200
Quebec 3.6% $440 $54,500
Prince Edward Island 3.2% $385 $52,600
New Brunswick 3.1% $365 $50,600
Newfoundland & Labrador 2.9% $480 $50,900
CANADA 4.7% $520 $61,800
Sources: Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and Income; Gambling, August 2010 and Statistics Canada
CANSIM table 111-0001.