gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

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The Camrose mayor, for example, stated that the planned casino complex located just east of town was “the whole anchor of the development out there *and+ will become a strong part of the community” once construction begins. Unfortunately, because of a downturn in the economy, the proposed destination resort (casino, hotel, convention centre) plans were pared down to a stand-alone casino. Although the footings and infrastructure are in place, hotel and convention centre construction remains on hold. Locating the casino in that sector did however allow the town council to justify widening the highway and extending municipal water and sewage infrastructure at the casino owner’s expense. Now the sector is fully serviced. The casino also catalyzed the Camrose Regional Exhibition’s recent $1 million campground construction, followed by the town servicing and the sale of many additional industrialcommercial lots. The Camrose mayor also pointed to improved tourist traffic attributable to the casino as one of its main economic contributions. Likewise, the Cold Lake mayor was pleased with the casino (even though it is located on the Cold Lake First Nations) due to the increased number of people stopping in his town that might otherwise shop in a centre without a casino. For Grande Prairie, casino donations for community events combined with the jobs were considered the positive economic attribute. The Whitecourt mayor indicated that the casino was an important selling point in the town’s campaign to recruit new businesses. Community representatives from Red Deer reported that the two Red Deer casinos draw significant numbers of tourists and regional patrons who spend money in town. Yet several mayors contradicted their commentary by concluding that the casinos were not living up to expectations, and that gambling in general was problematic to the community. All participants cited casino tourism as an important economic driver. Yet no municipal statistics are kept measuring local tourism or the projected amounts spent at the casinos, or the projected amounts spent by casino patrons at local businesses. Although proclaiming casino employment to be one of the important benefits, the majority pointed out that the jobs in question were low-skilled employment in a service-sector industry. Casino jobs were characterized as consisting of a small number of well-paid, permanent management positions and a large number of low paying jobs with limited upward mobility. The Cold Lake mayor was the only one to point to potential career advancement opportunities within casinos. The remainder were less optimistic that the jobs were emotionally or intellectually satisfying; or that casino employees would remain loyal in the face of an improved economy resulting in the availability of better paying employment opportunities. Physical Infrastructure Issues Gambling may contribute to incremental infrastructure costs, which are difficult to quantify. Calgary and Edmonton were the only communities to cite this issue, however, with traffic, public safety, and public transport being the main concerns. An example was provided by a municipal official from Edmonton, who explained “So much of our infrastructure … is based on 214
daytime usage ... if it’s shopping centre or hotel, it all wraps up at 11 or 12. And it … impacts things like, how you run your bus service, how much police you put out there. If you stand at the corner of Whyte Avenue and 105th at 2 o’clock on a Friday afternoon you can count somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 people. If you stand at the same intersection at 2 o’clock in the morning, you will get somewhere 20,000 and 30,000 people [because of casinos]. Because you’ve got more people there, more *are+ at risk than you have during the day. We’ve tried couple of trials around bussing, the trouble with those is that … we cannot fund it continuously … So it very much changes the nature of your area when we have a casino.” For cities like Edmonton, the lack of funding to meet these additional infrastructure demands means that services have to be delivered in a more efficient fashion. For example, community representatives have initiated a program of synchronization with police and emergency response agencies to improve local land planning (i.e., road alignment). The goal is to try to improve services while reducing costs. The general concern raised was that the municipalities experience a minimal direct return on gambling but nonetheless bear the bulk of the infrastructure costs. As one informant stated, “I think certainly, the 2 big cities position on this has always been that it’s not about saying “it shouldn’t happen” it’s just that if we are going to be required provide some of these services we need some of the money that goes along [to support it].” Interestingly, the remaining five cities, all of which are considered rural, stated that neither casinos nor other gambling venues were negatively impacting their infrastructure. For example, at Whitecourt “We really did not see the impact on any major infrastructure as a result of the casino. So it’s not using current road infrastructure like our Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire does. And we have a 10-year capital plan on this infrastructure. So, for example, our repaving programs, and our traffic light programs we have it allocated increases to go along with growth to the community.” A Camrose official stated “Absolutely not. It’s [the casino] is located on a highway. You know, highway 13, which is built to handle, I don’t know, a hundred times the traffic that it has now. So the casino contribution has been absolutely negligible.” Lethbridge, Cold Lake, Grande Prairie, and St. Albert have their casinos located outside the core, in or nearby industrial or commercial sectors. This may be why traffic and infrastructure issues were not a concern. The only community to fall outside this general model was Red Deer, which has two downtown casinos. Nonetheless, informants stated that infrastructure issues were not a concern. Gambling as an Acceptable form of Entertainment When asked about local attitudes about the casino and gambling in general, a municipal official from Camrose replied, “It’s something that the Alberta society and maybe North American society has become accustomed to … legalized gambling in their backyard. It’s not much different from a bar at the corner.” One mayor remarked “ … it’s everywhere in Canada. It’s well controlled, and people have faith that the province or the authority is looking after it to make sure it’s fair.” 215
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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’.
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Several factors influence the perce
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There are also some important lesso
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Figure 30: Proportion of Total Net
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Figure 31: Number of Charities per
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IMPACTS ON SOCIETY The citizens of
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Number of Alberta Gambling Employee
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Table 34: North American Industry C
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Table 35: Importance of Gambling as
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percentage of the population (i.e.,
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Table 37: Household Past Year Repor
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40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% F
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Although Albertans are satisfied wi
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A final attitude question asked in
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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 and 186: that gambling had resulted in separ
Page 187 and 188: Applying these prevalence rates to
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: Several community representatives a
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
Page 235 and 236: etter skilled individuals in the co
Page 237 and 238: Problem Gambling A recent review of
Page 239 and 240: Table 65: Prevalence of Problem Gam
Page 241 and 242: $500 chip. One municipal official c
Page 243 and 244: Both the increased affluence and th
Page 245 and 246: The Enoch Cree Nation has to pay ba
Page 247 and 248: The fire department also represents
Page 249 and 250: chances. One official stated that t
Page 251 and 252: With the exception of 2006-2007, th
Page 253 and 254: Post-Script: Barriers to Participat
Page 255 and 256: (Indian Act, 1985). The latter coul
Page 257 and 258: SUMMARY Research Approach The prese
Page 259 and 260: 1% (or less) of Alberta GDP since t
Page 261 and 262: can be said of charitable gambling
Page 263 and 264: 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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