The Plain Dealer is looking at problem gambling: How casinos play you.

For those interested, here’s a good review from the Scottish Government: Research on the Social Impacts of Gambling. They conclude generally:

  • Understanding of the social impacts of gambling is limited by a serious lack of high quality research.
  • Both the negative as well as the positive effects of gambling, particularly casino gambling, tend to be overstated.
  • Disadvantaged social groups who experience poverty, unemployment, dependence on welfare, and low levels of education and household income are most likely to suffer the adverse consequences of increased gambling.
  • Availability and convenience are strongly associated with problem gambling.
  • Research has found that proximity to casinos increases rates of problem gambling in the local population.
  • Casinos do not appear to increase per capita crime, although total crime in a neighborhood may increase. This effect appears to be concentrated on specific types of crime, such as burglary, and does not seem to affect violent crime and most street crimes.
  • You might aslo review a report on the research challenge of monitoring problem gambling.

    What is needed now are regular, systematic and adequately funded assessments of the impacts of legal gambling and the prevalence of problem gambling at the national, regional and local levels.

    Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison

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