Based on Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs Social Series, "69 percent of Americans say gambling is morally acceptable [in 2018], a four percentage-point increase from last year and the highest level of acceptance in the 16 years Gallup has asked the question." Compared to the nation, the SEIGMA team, using the Baseline General Population Survey of Massachusetts, found that 82.4 percent of the Massachusetts adult population did not believe gambling was morally wrong and only 17.3 percent considered gambling immoral in 2013-2014. Indeed, compared to the nation, more Massachusetts residents feel that gambling is morally acceptable.

Valerie Evans, a Biostatistician on the SEIGMA project, is currently managing the development of interactive web applications.

The SEIGMA team is excited to introduce MASS-AT-A-GLANCE, a user-friendly platform which provides users with an interactive way of exploring Massachusetts data on selected social and economic variables.  MASS-AT-A-GLANCE currently contains data on demographics (age, race, gender, ethnicity, population), social variables (marital status, educational attainment, veterans status, suicide rates, English language learners, students with disabilities), and economic variables (household income, poverty rates, employment, unemployment, bankruptcy, rent, building permits). Users can explore state-wide data or opt to focus on data in a specific municipality.

 Alissa Mazar, SEIGMA's project manager, details SEIGMA’s recently released “Patron and License Plate Survey Report: Plainridge Park Casino 2016,” which is a key component to understanding the social and economic impacts of casinos in the Commonwealth.

In 2016, the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) research team conducted a patron survey at Massachusetts’ first casino, Plainridge Park Casino (PPC). Laurie Salame, senior lecturer at UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management and an expert advisor to the study, led the survey and is the report’s lead author. Concerning patron surveys, this effort is first-of-its-kind due to its rigorous method to attain a sample of PPC patronage as representative as possible while using sophisticated weighting techniques to account for response bias.

Alissa Mazar, SEIGMA's project manager, summarizes Volberg and co-authors' most recent contribution to the gambling literature, “Forms of gambling, gambling involvement, and problem gambling: Evidence from a Swedish population survey.” 

Dr. Rachel Volberg, the Principal Investigator of the SEIGMA study, has recently published “Forms of gambling, gambling involvement, and problem gambling: Evidence from a Swedish population survey” in International Gambling Studies. Working in collaboration with colleagues from Sweden, Volberg’s article makes a distinct contribution to the gambling literature by teasing out how participating in specific forms of gambling, the number of gambling formats, and intensity (i.e., time and money spent) relate to problem gambling.