gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

decrease in illegal gambling coincident with the 1969 Criminal Code change legalizing ‘lottery
schemes’. Another decrease appears to occur coincident with the 1985 Criminal Code change
giving control over lottery schemes to the provinces and permitting them to offer electronic
forms of gambling. However, it is important to note that some of these decreases actually
preceded the 1969 and 1985 legislative changes (particularly the decrease from 1965 to 1968).
This likely reflects the greater tolerance for illegal gambling and less diligent enforcement of the
law that often tends to precede legislative changes.
To empirically examine the relationship of these crime rate trends to gambling, the statistical
degree of association between these indices and several different indices of gambling
availability was examined. 89 More specifically, these crime indices over time were correlated
with changes in the following gambling availability indices over the same time period: number
of pull ticket licences per 1000 adults; number of bingo events per 1000 adults; number of
ticket lottery centres per 1000 adults; number of VLTs per 1000 adults; number of VLT locations
per 1000 adults; number of permanent casinos and RECs per 1000 adults; number of slot
machines per 1000 adults; number of total EGMs per 1000 adults; and per adult net gambling
expenditure (in 2010 dollars). These correlations appear in Table 54.
Several significant (and somewhat surprising) correlations were observed, with the significant
correlations being represented by shaded cells. It was found that the per capita rate of total
Criminal Code incidents was significantly and positively associated with the per adult
prevalence of pull ticket licences, bingo events, and lottery ticket centres. The per capita rate
of violent crime was significantly positively associated with per adult prevalence of lottery ticket
centres, VLTs, VLT locations, casinos and RECs, slot machines, EGMs, and net gambling
expenditure. The per capita rate of property crime was significantly positively correlated with
per adult prevalence of pull ticket licences and ticket lottery centres. The per capita rate of
theft was significantly negatively associated with per adult prevalence of pull ticket licences and
bingo events, but positively associated with per adult prevalence of ticket lottery centres, VLTs,
VLT locations, casinos and RECs, slot machines, EGMs, and net gambling expenditure. The per
capita rate of fraud was significantly positively associated with the per adult prevalence of pull
ticket licences and bingo events, but negatively associated with per adult prevalence of VLTs,
VLT locations, casinos and RECs, slot machines, EGMs, and net gambling expenditure. The per
capita rate of illegal gambling was significantly negatively associated with per adult prevalence
of ticket lottery centres, casinos and RECs, slot machines, EGMs, and net gambling expenditure.
Some of these correlations do not make any theoretical sense (i.e., increased gambling
availability being associated with decreased theft and fraud). It would seem that most of these
are likely spurious correlations that have capitalized on the general increase over time of
gambling availability coincident with the general nation-wide increase in crime rates up to the
89 Although a broad range of gambling availability indices were used, there was somewhat more of a focus on the
ones plausibly related to crime. In the 2008 and 2009 population surveys we examined types of gambling reported
by the small subset of people reporting engaging in illegal activities to support their gambling. Sixty two and onehalf
percent of these individuals indicated there was a particular form causing more problems than others, with
EGMs (42%) and casino table games (19%) being identified as the most problematic.
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