An article in The Economist from Dec 5th, 2024 title “America’s gambling boom should be celebrated, not feared” hurt my eyes. Give it a read if you have an account. Otherwise here is a brief overview:
Their take on the current U.S. ‘gambling frenzy’ is that peoples’ increased ability of “being free to enjoy themselves” is heavily correlated with this uptick. Meaning what exactly? We’ll get to that.
The overall theme of the article is that this fact should be celebrated and then went on to insinuate that there is a positive correlation between the two. To the writers credit, they did begin with acknowledging that many people view this upsurge in gambling (online casino, sports betting, etc) as a “vice that ensnares the poor”. However, that view point was only worth two short sentences before they immediately switched back to claiming that “much about today’s gambling boom should be celebrated…”.
Their arguments as to why this should be celebrated are the following:
- Indicates economic growth. Positively correlates with an increase in people with discretionary income/increase in level of discretionary income per capita.
- The U.S.’s cultural norms towards gambling are beginning to mirror other developed countries norms (europe, australia, and south america) and ‘catching up’ to the global trend.
- The industry, especially the sport betting providers, helps boost the sporting world as well. Their analytics show that there is a positive correlation with fan engagement . They also compared how sports betting tends to be more social and skill-oriented compared to solitary gambling forms like slots.
The piece talks a lot about how regulations have become more favouring to the industry which is obviously a big contributor to the increased participation. It then ties in how other countries have learnt the lesson of not banning gambling altogether, but to regulate its harms is the best for the publics interests. They noted that by criminalizing gambling would deprive tens millions of people of entertainment (ok…) and would push most bettors underground, where there is no regulation and they are more susceptible to abuse.
My opinion:
I could not find any credible supporting evidence to back the majority of their claims. Except of course this piece —> National Economic Impact of the U.S. Gaming Industry 2023 from the AMERICAN GAMING ASSOCIATION…. lol.
What I COULD find were real articles by real economists, which don’t seem to be funded by casinos or sport betting sites, that are not ‘celebrating’. Picking just one out of many to highlight is —> Casinos and Regional Economies: Has the Game Changed? by Adam Scavette — an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He cited a multitude of studies and came to the conclusion that casinos are more beneficial in less competitive, less dense areas but provide limited evidence of significant tax revenue growth. Over the past 30 years, as legalized gambling has expanded and competition increased, its potential to boost regional economies has diminished. The decline of regional monopolies means new casinos are less likely to attract significant tourism or drive economic growth.
This conclusion was pretty much mirrored between all credible studies I could find, including this one —> Spotlight on Economics: Do Casinos Have a Positive Effect on Economic Growth? by Siew Hoon Lim, Associate Professor at NDSU Agribusiness and Applied Economics Department. I liked that she listed a lot of the negative externalities that are linked with casino’s. Although data is sparce on these externalities, you can imagine how some communities can experience increase drunk driving fatalities, suicides, crimes, divorces, foreclosures, etc.
Also, anyone with a brain can see that gambling is being glorified as the new trendy form of entertainment, ‘responsible gambling’ safeguards are not better at mitigating aggregate losses of bettors than – oh geez, I don’t know – slapping fat regulations on marketing or banning certain forms, and that if the industry keeps growing the so called ‘ benefits to the economy’ will begin to reverse even in those metrics.
Societal costs aside, another metric that is near impossible to to calculate but should be talked about are the opportunity costs. If we’re making the assumption that the ‘discretionary income’ that these bettor’s have would be spent anyway, likely on another form of entertainment, would the economic benefits be greater from a tax revenue and GDP/GDP per capita perspective? Well, probably yeah. This opinion of mine is solely based on common sense and the fact that there exist more lucrative tax loopholes for many casinos (state & ownership dependent) in the U.S. compared to other entertainment corporations.
MY CONCLUSION:
Economics Benefit = short-term and minimal in aggregate. Especially as competition grows with loosened restriction.
Harm to society = long-term and potentially irreversible.
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