LETHBRIDGE — Ten per cent of Albertans who gamble are responsible for 80 per cent of the money spent in the pursuit of a big payoff.
That’s the conclusion of a study by University of Lethbridge researchers from the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Department of Native American Studies.
The academics sifted through more than 40 years of information, data and reports and then conducted their own in-depth research to determine the long-term effects of gambling in the province.
Their study suggests that the not-for-profit groups and community organizations that raise money through gambling get minor economic benefits but also endure minor economic costs.
Roughly $2.5 billion annually is taken into government coffers through gambling and dispensed to charitable groups through various agencies and government ministries.
Not surprisingly, the researchers also found that there are major challenges in the form of problem gambling.
“A small percentage of individuals are responsible for a majority of the issues surrounding gambling in general — and their actions directly or indirectly affect eight to 10 per cent of the province’s population,” said Dr. Robert Williams, one of the study’s authors.
“That’s more than 300,000 people. Of that population, we estimate that 10 per cent of gamblers contribute 80 per cent of all provincial gambling revenues. These people can be involved in problem gambling to a point where they are affected by bankruptcy, divorce, unemployment, crime and, tragically, suicide.”
Williams said gambling appears to be an important contributor to overall bankruptcy and suicide rates in the province.
“The challenge is that despite a number of controls and programs, and well-regulated legalized gambling which has significantly decreased non-regulated illegal gambling, the bottom line is that a small percentage of problem gamblers are responsible for the majority of health, social and criminal problems associated with gambling.”
However, the researchers also found an upside.
“We found that gambling has provided an additional leisure option that is fairly well patronized, and legalized gambling also appears to provide minor employment benefits,” said Dr. Yale Belanger, a co-author of the report.
“The main economic benefits concern the fact that gambling appears to create additional economic activity without any obvious negative impacts on other businesses, and gambling leads to a very small increase in the value of infrastructure such as buildings and roads, for instance.”
Belanger added that, at a community level, there are significant economic benefits to First Nations communities that have casinos, because of their ability to retain a large part of the revenue.
“Although this increased revenue is mostly derived from people who visit from non-First Nations communities — primarily Edmonton and Calgary — it represents a relatively small cost to these large urban economies,” Belanger said.
“But we estimate that First Nations in 2009-2010 through their charities and the First Nations Development Fund had access to more than $158 million for local programming, economic development, and infrastructure projects, to name a few areas this money can be used for.”
The study took three years and cost $685,000. Funding was provided by the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.