gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

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Crime It is a common perception that increased gambling is associated with increased crime. However, in many ways this may be a vestige of the well publicized involvement of organized crime in the development of legal gambling in the United States in the 1940s. The actual empirical evidence of an association is mixed, with almost as many studies finding no impact on crime as studies that have found increases in crime as a result of increased availability of gambling (Williams, Rehm & Stevens, 2011). Theoretically, the introduction of legal gambling should influence crime rates in one of several ways. One way is by decreasing the rate of illegal gambling. A second is by increasing the number of problem gamblers, a minority of which engage in crimes (primarily property crime) to support their gambling. A third is because certain forms of gambling (e.g., casinos) offer increased opportunities for illegal activity to occur (e.g., passing counterfeit money, money laundering, cheating-at-play). A fourth is by creation of venues that serve alcohol and thereby potentially contribute to alcohol-related offences, and/or venues that disproportionately attract a clientele with criminal tendencies. A fifth and final way is by increasing the overall number of visitors to the area (this population is often not taken into account when determining a jurisdiction’s crime rate per capita). Population Surveys Several questions in the 2008 and 2009 Alberta population surveys potentially shed light on the rate at which gambling problems directly lead to criminal activity: a) “Has your involvement in gambling caused you or someone close to you to write bad cheques, take money that didn't belong to you or commit other illegal acts to support your gambling in the past 12 months?”, b) “In the past 12 months has gambling ever caused an instance of domestic violence in your household?”, c) “In the past 12 months, how much money have you illegally obtained in order to gamble?”, d) “In the past 12 months has your gambling been a factor in your committing a crime for which you have been arrested?”, e) “Were you convicted for this crime?”, and f) “Were you incarcerated for this crime?”. (Note: Earlier in this report domestic violence was addressed under family impacts of problem gambling. However, because domestic violence is also an assault violation in the Criminal Code of Canada it will be dealt with in this section as well). Among the 403 problem gamblers from the combined 2008 and 2009 surveys, 29/403 (7.2% + 2.5%) indicated that their gambling had caused them to commit an illegal act, 17/403 (4.2% + 1.9%) indicated that gambling was the cause of an incident of domestic violence, 25/403 (6.2% + 2.4%) indicated they had obtained money illegally for their gambling, 5/403 (1.2% + 1.1%) indicated they had been arrested for committing a gambling-related crime, 2/403 (0.5%) indicated they were convicted for this crime, and 1/403 (0.2%) indicated they were incarcerated for this crime. 186
Applying these prevalence rates to the estimated 72,456 problem gamblers in Alberta in 2008/2009 would suggest that annually there would be about 5,214 Albertans who commit gambling-motivated illegal acts, 4,494 who illegally obtain money to gamble, 3,043 cases of domestic violence due to gambling, 83 899 people who are arrested because of gambling-related offences, 360 who are convicted for this gambling-related offence, and 180 who are actually incarcerated for this gambling-related offence. Direct Examination of Police Records A second method of studying gambling-related crime is by examination of police reports. While the offence category of any police involvement is available from secondary sources such as Statistics Canada Uniform Crime Survey, the cause of these incidents is only potentially available from the original police report. In Alberta, most of the major cities have municipal police services, with the rest of the province served by the federal police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The Research Team contacted each of Alberta’s major police services (Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and the RCMP) to request access to their case files for the purpose of examining them for gambling-related incident reports. Two of these agencies agreed to allow the Research Team access to their files: Lethbridge Regional Police Service (LRPS) and the Medicine Hat Police Service (MHPS). Unfortunately, cause(s) of crime are not automatically recorded in police reports. However, there is an option for police officers to record details and mitigating factors of an occurrence within the narrative of their report. Thus, the process for determining the presence of gambling-related offences in police incident reports is doing key word searches of these narratives, with the recognition that the observed frequency of gambling-related offences will be an underestimate (i.e., for gambling to be recorded in the report there needs to be: a) actual gambling-related involvement, b) a police officer aware that the incident is gamblingrelated, and c) a police officer who feels that it is important to record the gambling-related nature of the incident in his/her report). A member of the Research Team (Jennifer Arthur) electronically searched through the 2005 to 2009 incident reports of the Lethbridge Regional Police Service, whereas the Medicine Hat Police Service assigned an officer to conduct the key word searches on the Research Team’s behalf for the period 2004 to 2009. Key words used for these searches were ‘gamble’, ‘gambling’, ‘VLT’, ‘lottery’, ‘casino’, and ‘bingo’. Whenever one of these words was found then 83 Canadian Criminal Code statistics do not identify whether assaults are domestic-related or not. However, there is a rough way of inferentially estimating the percentage of domestic violence incidents that are gambling related. In the 2008/2009 Targeted population surveys of the Lethbridge area, 1/903 people indicated that gambling led to domestic violence. This projects to 75 cases on average per annum among the estimated 72,456 problem gamblers. Given that the average number of domestic violence incidents reported in Lethbridge police incident reports for 2008/2009 was 947, gambling-related domestic violence would have accounted for approximately 7.9% of all incidents. 187
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Plant fertilizer 2011 GAMBLING IN A
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Citation Williams, R.J., Belanger,
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AMOUNTS, ORIGINS, AND RECIPIENTS OF
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ABSTRACT At a provincial level, the
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Alberta is estimated to have 3,755,
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than empirical in nature. Thus, the
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While the above described approach
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census. A supplemental Online Gener
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THEORETICAL APPROACH PROBLEMS WITH
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Aside from these practical issues,
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SOUND PRINCIPLES FOR CONDUCTING SOC
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Again, other ways of organizing and
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4. The transfer of wealth and chang
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Compare Changes to those Observed i
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to document prior gambling opportun
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Mid 1700s to late 1800s 1869 - 1892
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Cheating at gambling (Part XXVIII F
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1924 Criminal Code amendment to s.9
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1957 Western Canadian Racing Associ
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1980s There is a major expansion of
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1989 In June the Criminal Code of C
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1997 AGLC allows the number of slot
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2003 Federal agriculture minister m
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HISTORY OF EACH TYPE OF GAMBLING Th
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Number of Live Race Days per Year I
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Table 1: Total Raffle Licences per
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Table 2: Total Pull-Ticket Licences
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Table 3: Total Bingo Licences per Y
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Table 5: Total Bingo Events per Yea
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Table 6: Total Lottery Ticket Retai
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Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) In A
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Table 8: Total Video Lottery Locati
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1996 Slot machines and electronic h
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The main indices that speak to chan
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Table 12: Total Charitable Casino L
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REGULATORY AND ORGANIZATIONAL HISTO
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HISTORY OF FIRST NATIONS COMMERCIAL
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CURRENT REGULATION, AVAILABILITY, A
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aggregate value of all tickets sold
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ALBERTA GOVERNMENT GAMBLING The Cri
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CASINOS Traditional Casinos Casinos
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percentage of table game revenue re
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Figure 15. Location of Current and
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HORSE RACING Horse racing is the on
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Bingo Lotteries and Instant Win (Sc
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AMOUNTS, ORIGINS, AND RECIPIENTS OF
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Another way of looking at the overa
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increase has occurred since the ear
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WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM? As
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Figure 20: Proportion of Alberta Ne
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Origin of Net Gambling Revenue by D
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Table 18: Past Year Gambling Partic
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EGM Players Table 20 shows reasonab
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Table 21: Percentage of Each Type o
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winsorized then 75% of reported exp
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Table 22a: Demographic Profile of t
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patronage and revenue. Attendance f
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However, less important than the ac
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Because of the paramount importance
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Actual Revenue Another source of da
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Figure 25: Average Ticket Lottery R
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WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING? The final
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industry. The proportion of gamblin
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Table 27: Grants Awarded by Alberta
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since 1999; 47% of all revenue in 2
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IMPACTS OF LEGAL GAMBLING IMPACTS O
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‘addicted to gambling revenue’.
Page 135 and 136: Several factors influence the perce
Page 137 and 138: There are also some important lesso
Page 139 and 140: Figure 30: Proportion of Total Net
Page 141 and 142: Figure 31: Number of Charities per
Page 143 and 144: IMPACTS ON SOCIETY The citizens of
Page 145 and 146: Number of Alberta Gambling Employee
Page 147 and 148: Table 34: North American Industry C
Page 149 and 150: Table 35: Importance of Gambling as
Page 151 and 152: percentage of the population (i.e.,
Page 153 and 154: Table 37: Household Past Year Repor
Page 155 and 156: 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% F
Page 157 and 158: Although Albertans are satisfied wi
Page 159 and 160: A final attitude question asked in
Page 161 and 162: Figure 41: What sort of overall imp
Page 163 and 164: Prevalence Problem Gambling and Rel
Page 165 and 166: Williams & Volberg (2010) also calc
Page 167 and 168: Features of Problem Gamblers The ty
Page 169 and 170: significant change in reported casi
Page 171 and 172: Table 43: Gambling and Problem Gamb
Page 173 and 174: their shared variance is taken into
Page 175 and 176: Treatment Numbers and Costs Treatme
Page 177 and 178: The only readily available figures
Page 179 and 180: OSB reports there were a total of 7
Page 181 and 182: Table 49: Consumer Insolvency Rates
Page 183 and 184: Another approach is to establish th
Page 185: that gambling had resulted in separ
Page 189 and 190: gambling-related illegal acts and 8
Page 191 and 192: It is important to remember that th
Page 193 and 194: Table 52: Criminal Charges Laid by
Page 195 and 196: early 1990s, that was followed by a
Page 197 and 198: Table 54: Correlation between Crime
Page 199 and 200: Infrastructure Value The private se
Page 201 and 202: With respect to this first possibil
Page 203 and 204: increase in the comparison periods;
Page 205 and 206: Census Division Table 57: Business
Page 207 and 208: versus 2.2%). Commercial insolvency
Page 209 and 210: thinking in an interpretative act;
Page 211 and 212: The Edmonton mayor indicated he bel
Page 213 and 214: Several community representatives a
Page 215 and 216: daytime usage ... if it’s shoppin
Page 217 and 218: Increased crime was a related issue
Page 219 and 220: IMPACT ON FIRST NATIONS The impact
Page 221 and 222: Table 59: Use of First Nations Char
Page 223 and 224: Table 60: Distributions to Differen
Page 225 and 226: Table 60 illustrates that the large
Page 227 and 228: McKay, Heart Lake and the Athabasca
Page 229 and 230: Geographical Distribution As seen i
Page 231 and 232: Figure 51: Average Per Community FN
Page 233 and 234: Employment and Income Impacts of Fi
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Problem Gambling A recent review of
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Table 65: Prevalence of Problem Gam
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$500 chip. One municipal official c
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Both the increased affluence and th
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The Enoch Cree Nation has to pay ba
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The fire department also represents
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chances. One official stated that t
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With the exception of 2006-2007, th
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Post-Script: Barriers to Participat
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(Indian Act, 1985). The latter coul
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SUMMARY Research Approach The prese
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1% (or less) of Alberta GDP since t
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can be said of charitable gambling
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Because revenue from charity casino
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Socioeconomic Inequality Alberta ga
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Despite the relatively low rates of
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supplies/equipment or to reinvest i
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Some of these sentiments tend to su
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communities highlight the casinos a
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ASSESSMENT OF THE OVERALL IMPACTS O
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2. The economic activity increases
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OVERALL SOCIAL IMPACTS Legalized ga
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OVERALL IMPACTS At a provincial lev
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however, that the potential for bri
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REFERENCES Abbott, M.W., Williams,
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Centre for Social and Health Outcom
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Jackson, D. (2010). VLT critic call
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Purdy, C. (2004). Band stakes its f
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Walker, D.M. (2008a). Challenges th
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2008 Survey APPENDICES Appendix A:
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General Population Targeted INELIGI
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are interested in the opinions of b
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PAST YEAR GAMBLING BEHAVIOUR GY1a.
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GY6a. In the past 12 months, how of
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Cash Casino - Red Deer (15) Jackpot
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GY10a. In the past 12 months, how o
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GY14a. In the past 12 months, what
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GP4. CPGI4/PPGM8b. In the past 12 m
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GP11b. In the past 12 months has ga
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GP16a. PPGM8c. In the past 12 month
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The following question only asked o
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TRIANGULATION (ONLINE PANEL ONLY) T
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Exact amount________________ (17) U
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2009 Survey The 2009 survey was als
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C11. Do you have pleasant memories
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SURVEY YEAR 1992 1993 1995 1996 199
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2008 2008 2009 2009 Williams, Belan
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1 Medicine Hat 2 Lethbridge 3 Fort
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8. In the past 12 months, have you
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Appendix F: Alberta’s Economic Re
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7. A thorough due diligence investi
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