gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

With respect to this first possibility, most forms of gambling in Alberta are pervasively available
and require no significant travel. There are over 2,400 retail outlets to buy lottery tickets,
instant win tickets, or bet on sports; over 1,000 bars that provide VLTs; and about 90
community and commercial bingo halls. The only things that might require some travel are
racetracks (only 4 that are regularly operational) and casinos. However, patronage levels for
horse racing are too low for their travel-related expenses to be very important. Table 18 (p.
103) has established that only 3% to 5% of Albertans bet on horse racing in the period 2007 –
2009, with a significant portion of these individuals betting at the much more widely distributed
teletheatres rather than at the racetrack. Also, with 27 casinos distributed throughout the
province, very few people have to travel very far. Nonetheless, a question was asked in the
2008 and 2009 population surveys that specifically addressed this issue. For the 19.9% of
people who reported visiting an Alberta casino in the past year, they were asked “On average,
how much would you estimate you spend on hotels, food, drinks, shopping or other attractions
each time you visit your favourite (Alberta) casino?” The modal response was “nothing” (46%
of respondents), the median was $5, and the average was $91. Thus, in summary, it seems
unlikely that casino gambling in Alberta generates significant travel-related expenses that could
potentially impact other travel-related industries.
The possibility still exists that gambling has resulted in the redirection of money from other
sector(s) of the economy, and that private industry impacts could be manifest in this manner.
However, there does not appear to be much evidence for such impacts. Another question in
the 2008 population survey asked “Has gambling replaced other recreational activities for you
in the past 5 years”. 91 Only 2.6% of the overall sample said “yes”, with this endorsement mostly
coming from the small percentage of Alberta gamblers who have been identified as
contributing the lion’s share of Alberta gambling revenue (Tables 22a,b, p. 111). Furthermore,
the most commonly endorsed activities that gambling had replaced tended to be things that did
not cost money: participating in sports (playing, coaching), outdoor leisure (e.g., walking,
camping, driving, off-roading, horseback riding), interacting/spending time with friends, etc.
A second way of investigating the possibility of redirected money is by examining whether
annual changes in reported gambling expenditures are related to annual changes in other
reported household expenditures. On an annual basis from 1997 to 2008 the Statistics Canada
Survey of Household Expenditures has asked a large representative sampling of Albertans to
estimate their past year household expenditures in 14 different categories: food, shelter,
household operation, household furnishings and equipment, clothing, transportation, health
care, personal care, recreation, reading materials, education, tobacco and alcohol,
miscellaneous, and gambling. A Pearson correlation was conducted between reported
gambling expenditure in each of these 12 years against expenditure in each of these 13 other
categories. None of the 13 correlations with gambling expenditure was found to be statistically
significant. All correlations but one were slightly positive, reflecting the fact there has been
91 Admittedly, a better question would have been whether the person is spending less on other things because of
gambling.
201