gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

With such a high base rate of problem gambling, it has always been a concern that placing
casinos in close proximity to First Nation reserves might exacerbate existing problems.
Gambling availability is a well known risk factor for problem gambling (Williams, West, &
Simpson, 2007; 2008). Furthermore, the present report has documented that casino proximity
is related to both casino patronage and expenditure, with casino gamblers who live within 5 km
contributing 1.54 times more revenue than their population prevalence (Table 26). In addition,
Table 44 and the associated analyses have documented that there is a weak but statistically
significant relationship between casino distance category and problem gambling status as
measured by the Problem and Pathological Gambling Measure (PPGM). The fact that casino
employees have significantly higher rates of problem gambling is also of concern (Dangerfield,
2004; Shaffer et al., 2009).
Table 65 sheds some light on the relationship between increased gambling availability and
problem gambling rates among Aboriginal people as found in Alberta population surveys from
1993 to the present time. It should be noted that the First Nation sample sizes in some of the
survey years is very low, creating large confidence intervals around their prevalence rates.
Also, to increase the First Nation sample size in 2008 and 2009 all three surveys have been
combined (General Population, Targeted, Online). 97 A couple of things are apparent from this
table.
First, consistent with prior research, First Nation prevalence rates are significantly and
consistently higher than the general population prevalence rates across all time periods. The
First Nation figures are actually an underestimate of the true rates, as all of these surveys are
telephone surveys, and a significant portion of First Nations people do not have a telephone
landline (found to be 18% for Alberta reserves and 3% non-reserve FN people in the 2001
Statistics Canada Aboriginal Peoples Survey). It is well established that households without
residential telephone service historically have had significantly higher rates of poverty,
unemployment, health problems, and substance use (Ford, 1998; Pearson et al., 1994) (almost
certainly problem gambling as well, e.g., Rönnberg et al., 1999).
Second, there is some evidence of increased rates of problem gambling from 1993 to 2000,
coincident with the increased gambling availability that occurred from 1993 to 2000.
Third, there is some evidence of decreased rates of problem gambling since 2000, coincident
with the same trend that may be occurring in the general population (see earlier section on
Problem Gambling). This is despite further significant increases in gambling availability and
general population per capita expenditures during this time period.
97 While this provides an adequate First Nation sample for comparison with the aggregate sample, the obtained
rates are slightly higher than ‘true rates’, because the Targeted and Online samples are not perfectly
representative. Using just the 2008 and 2009 combined General Population sample, the estimated First Nations
prevalence rate of problem gambling in 2008/2009 is 8.7% compared to 2.4% for the General Population sample.
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