gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

ABSTRACT
At a provincial level, there would appear to be minor economic benefits to gambling in Alberta
that are offset by minor economic costs. The main economic benefits concern the fact that
gambling appears to create additional economic activity without any obvious negative impacts
on other business, and gambling is associated with a very small increase in the value of
infrastructure. At a community level, however, there are significant and unambiguous
economic benefits to First Nations communities that host casinos, because of their ability to
retain a large part of the revenue. Although this increased revenue is mostly derived from non-
First Nations communities (primarily Edmonton and Calgary), it represents a relatively small
cost to these large urban economies. The economic costs of gambling in Alberta concern the
fact that the creation of domestic gambling opportunities has more likely increased monetary
outflow to out-of-province jurisdictions rather than retained it. However, the amount of
outflow is small relative to overall Alberta Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is also worth
noting that the model used in Alberta, whereby the provincial government and community
groups are the primary beneficiaries of gambling revenue, is a system that best ensures that
gambling revenue stays in the province and the economic benefits accrue to Albertans.
From a social/nonmonetary perspective, it can be said that there are important social benefits
of gambling in Alberta that are offset by some serious negative consequences. The main
social benefit is the enhanced community services that Albertans receive from
charity/community groups and maintained and/or enhanced public services from the provincial
government. Other important social benefits are the fact that a) well-regulated legalized
gambling has significantly decreased non-regulated illegal gambling, and b) gambling has
provided an additional leisure option that is fairly well patronized. Legalized gambling also
appears to provide minor employment benefits. Gambling’s negative social impacts concern
the fact that it is slightly regressive, and it creates a small amount of additional crime (that is
offset to some extent by a significant decrease in illegal gambling). However, the main negative
impact is problem gambling, which directly or indirectly affects 8% to 10% of the population
and which involves particularly serious consequences for a small minority of these people
(bankruptcy, divorce, unemployment, crime, suicide). For some of these consequences
(bankruptcy, suicide) gambling appears to be an important contributor to their overall
prevalence within Alberta. However, a) the legal availability of gambling is only partly
responsible for the prevalence of problem gambling (i.e., problem gambling existed to some
extent prior to legal provision, and the relationship between legal gambling availability and
problem gambling prevalence in Alberta is weak), and b) problem gambling is only partly
responsible for these serious consequences (i.e., the comorbid conditions of problem gamblers
are additional contributing factors). A more directly attributable and ethically problematic
aspect of legal gambling is the fact the large majority of government and charity gambling
revenue is derived from a very small percentage of the population which includes a
disproportionate percentage of problem gamblers.
7