gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

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operator, as these things have the potential to negatively impact revenue. The extent to which this conflict has occurred in Alberta is unclear. Certainly, the prevention measures that have been implemented have tended to be the less effective ones (similar to other provinces) (Williams, West, & Simpson, 2007, 2008). On the other hand, the sensitivity of provincial governments to this conflict of interest criticism has arguably spurred them to prioritize ‘responsible gambling’ in a much greater way compared to jurisdictions that do not have this conflict (e.g., U.S.). In general, evidence from other fields (i.e., alcohol provision) indicates that government provision of ‘problematic products’ tends to be associated with safer provision. This would also appear to be the pattern observed cross-jurisdictionally with the provision of gambling. As will be discussed in the Economic Impacts summary section (later in this report), in additional to somewhat greater social protection, there may also be economic advantages of this government model of delivery. Impacts of Legal Gambling on Charitable/Community Organizations The main impact of legal gambling on charitable/community organizations is that it facilitates the ongoing ability of these organizations to provide the local activities and services engaged in by these community groups. This, involvement, in turn, directly or indirectly benefits the citizens of Alberta. In many jurisdictions the emergence of EGM and casino gambling run by governments or the private sector has negatively impacted charitable gambling revenue. This is not the case in Alberta due to the fact that a) the provincial government has dedicated a significant and relatively stable percentage of its own revenue to charity grants (an average of 21%), and b) charity groups have been given the ability to directly operate and/or benefit from casino gambling. One of the potential concerns with charitable access to gambling revenue is that this might decrease Albertan’s willingness to contribute to charities in other ways. However, there is no evidence of this, as the size of Albertan donations to charitable groups has represented a fairly stable percentage of their after-tax income since 1997. Another issue concerns whether community/charity groups have developed an overreliance on gambling revenue. The evidence would tend to indicate that many charity/community groups have indeed come to rely on gambling revenue, with the degree of this reliance often being higher for groups associated with sports, recreation, health, and somewhat lower for religious groups. There are also considerably more community groups in Alberta now seeking gambling revenue to support their activities. In the early 1990s it was typical for 2,000 to 3,000 community groups to receive Alberta Lottery Fund grants, whereas it has averaged 6,000 Alberta Lottery Fund grant recipients per year in the past 10 years. Similarly, in 2000 there were under 4,000 charities registered to hold a casino event. This number has increased to over 7,000 in 2010. 262
Because revenue from charity casino events has been so lucrative, another consequence is that charity/community groups have had less need for ongoing fundraising efforts. While this may be a good thing for fundraising, it may not be a good thing in terms of maintaining a community presence. The popularity of charity casino event fundraising has now resulted in an average wait time of 30 months to hold an event. Legalized gambling has also caused significant division and debate within the charitable community concerning the appropriateness of directly participating in and/or receiving funding from an activity that causes harm to some people. This is the main reason cited for not using this revenue source for charity/community groups who do not access charitable gambling. This continues to be a significant concern even among charity/community groups who do access this revenue source. Government and Charitable Services Impacts of Legal Gambling on Society Albertans are the direct recipients and primary beneficiaries of the roughly $2 billion dollars annually that the provincial government and charity/community organizations have collected in net gambling revenue in the past few years. These collective benefits are primarily manifest in terms of maintained and/or perhaps enhanced public services, and/or a decreased need to raise involuntary taxes. These represent some of the most important and unambiguously positive benefits of legalized gambling in Alberta. Employment Gambling employees only represent about 0.4% of the Alberta workforce, with an estimated 1/3 of these people working in the horse racing industry. This percentage has not changed appreciably in the past 20 years despite significant increases in gambling revenue, and appears to be due to the fact that the major generator of this increased revenue (EGMs) is not a labourintensive form of gambling. A significant percentage of people newly employed in the gambling industry were previously unemployed (ranging from 12% to 56% depending on the year), thus, representing ‘new’ jobs (~2,000) created by gambling rather than jobs that have been cannibalized from other industries. Newly hired gambling employees tend to come from relatively low skilled employment categories in a wide variety of different industries. There is also a high degree of turnover among these employees, with these individuals moving into a similar wide variety of relatively low skilled industry sectors. 263
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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
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Prevalence Problem Gambling and Rel
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Williams & Volberg (2010) also calc
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Features of Problem Gamblers The ty
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significant change in reported casi
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Table 43: Gambling and Problem Gamb
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their shared variance is taken into
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Treatment Numbers and Costs Treatme
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The only readily available figures
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OSB reports there were a total of 7
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Table 49: Consumer Insolvency Rates
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Another approach is to establish th
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that gambling had resulted in separ
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Applying these prevalence rates to
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gambling-related illegal acts and 8
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It is important to remember that th
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Table 52: Criminal Charges Laid by
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early 1990s, that was followed by a
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Table 54: Correlation between Crime
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Infrastructure Value The private se
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With respect to this first possibil
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increase in the comparison periods;
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Census Division Table 57: Business
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versus 2.2%). Commercial insolvency
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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
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: can be said of charitable gambling
Page 265 and 266: Socioeconomic Inequality Alberta ga
Page 267 and 268: Despite the relatively low rates of
Page 269 and 270: supplies/equipment or to reinvest i
Page 271 and 272: Some of these sentiments tend to su
Page 273 and 274: communities highlight the casinos a
Page 275 and 276: ASSESSMENT OF THE OVERALL IMPACTS O
Page 277 and 278: 2. The economic activity increases
Page 279 and 280: OVERALL SOCIAL IMPACTS Legalized ga
Page 281 and 282: OVERALL IMPACTS At a provincial lev
Page 283 and 284: however, that the potential for bri
Page 285 and 286: REFERENCES Abbott, M.W., Williams,
Page 287 and 288: Centre for Social and Health Outcom
Page 289 and 290: Jackson, D. (2010). VLT critic call
Page 291 and 292: Purdy, C. (2004). Band stakes its f
Page 293 and 294: Walker, D.M. (2008a). Challenges th
Page 295 and 296: 2008 Survey APPENDICES Appendix A:
Page 297 and 298: General Population Targeted INELIGI
Page 299 and 300: are interested in the opinions of b
Page 301 and 302: PAST YEAR GAMBLING BEHAVIOUR GY1a.
Page 303 and 304: GY6a. In the past 12 months, how of
Page 305 and 306: Cash Casino - Red Deer (15) Jackpot
Page 307 and 308: GY10a. In the past 12 months, how o
Page 309 and 310: GY14a. In the past 12 months, what
Page 311 and 312: 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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