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SEIGMA News

SEIGMA Blog: SEIGMA-UMass Donahue Institute analyze the impacts of casino expansion on the MA Lottery

Statewide and nationally, there is concern that the introduction of casinos will impact lottery sales. In Massachusetts, we are in the fortunate and unique position of having detailed sales data from the Massachusetts Lottery. This allows us to assess the impact of casino gambling on lottery sales over time and at different levels of resolution (i.e., in host and surrounding communities, different driving distances, different regions, patron origination cities, and statewide).

Following the opening of Plainridge Park Casino in June 2015, the present analysis shows there is no significant negative impact on lottery sales that can be attributed to the casino. In the first year of operation, sales closer to the casino grew more slowly.  While these sales declined in the second year of casino operation, they remain unchanged when including sales in Plainville and Plainridge Park Casino together. We will continue to monitor lottery sales to determine if the first two years of results reflect longer term trends and whether the much larger casinos planned for Everett and Springfield will have similar or different impacts on lottery sales in the Commonwealth.

Read more here

SEIGMA Blog: SEIGMA Launches MASS-AT-A-GLANCE—An interactive app of social and economic trends in MA communities

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.

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The Boston Business Journal covers SEIGMA—"first-of-its-kind study aims to help shape Mass. gambling industry from ground up"

The Boston Business Journal covers UMass Amherst's SEIGMA team and research study—"While the initial research has identified important trends and issues in social and economic impacts associated with expanding gaming in the state, the research team expects to see more significant impacts over time as the larger resort-style casinos come online. The current research is structured to provide researchers and public policy makers a better understanding of the gambling industry in Massachusetts than in other jurisdictions that have introduced casino gambling."

Read the full article here

SEIGMA research receives the attention of Gambling Research Exchange Ontario

Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO)—an independent knowledge translation and exchange organization that aims to eliminate the harm of gambling and to support evidenced based decision making—chooses the SEIGMA research article, "Comorbid pathological gambling, mental health, and substance use disorders: Health-care services provision by clinician specialty," published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, to feature in their "Research Snapshot: Summarize and Mobilize."

To read the "Snapshot," click here.

To read the full article, click here.

NEPR's Coverage on Volberg's Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort (MAGIC) Study

NEPR, in UMass Amherst Researchers Taking the Long View With Gambling Research, covers Volberg's MAGIC study, the first major cohort study on gambling conducted in the US.

Volberg: "To my knowledge, this is the 1st time anywhere in the world that a government agency has committed to this type of baseline study prior to the opening of a casino. It is a groundbreaking opportunity for researchers."

Read more here 

SEIGMA Blog: SEIGMA releases findings on the first major cohort study of gambling in the US: The Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort (MAGIC) study

Alissa Mazar, SEIGMA’s project manager, explains the recently released “Analysis of MAGIC Wave 2: Incidence and Transitions,” which provides insights into changes in gambling participation and problem gambling incidence prior to the opening of casinos in the Commonwealth.

The Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) research team has released a report on the first major adult cohort study of gambling conducted in the United States. By surveying the same individuals over time, cohort studies provide information on how gambling and problem gambling develops, progresses, and remits. This has significant value as it can highlight risk and protective factors important in developing effective prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery support services. 

Read more here

 

SEIGMA Blog: What are the economic impacts of casinos in MA? The Patron and License Plate Survey Report offers insight

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.

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SEIGMA Blog: Economic Impact Report of Plainridge Park Casino's First Year of Operation

Thomas Peake, Research Analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute (UMDI), and a researcher on the economic and fiscal analysis team, has spent the last three years developing models to assess the economic impacts of expanded gaming in Massachusetts. In this post, Peake details results from his analysis of the impacts from Plainridge Park Casino’s (PPC) first year of operation.

Read the blog here

Volberg Speaks to the Portland Press Herald re: the Economic Impacts of Casinos

Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) University of Massachusetts Amherst SPHHS

Rachel Volberg, SEIGMA's Principal Investigator, speaks to the Portland Press Herald on research versus projections concerning the economic impacts of casinos. 

“In my experience, casino development projects are often associated with rosy projections about the jobs and tax revenue that will be created,” said Rachel Volberg, principal investigator on the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts study. “However, efforts to actually monitor those impacts and assess their magnitude are rarely undertaken.”

Read more here

SEIGMA Blog: Gambling intensity and formats matter most, Volberg and co-authors find

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.

Read here

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Topics for Debate

The Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) study recently released Plainridge Park Casino First Year of Operations: Economic Impacts Report, authored by the UMass Donahue Institute’s Thomas Peake and Rod Motamedi.

With its release, media outlets from inside and outside of Massachusetts have targeted the report’s headline takeaways. The framing of these takeaways, however, is clearly shaped by which side of the border one is speaking from.

From a Massachusetts perspective, PPC has delivered on recapturing casino patrons who would have otherwise spent their gambling dollars at out-of-state casinos. Indeed, PPC represents one piece in Massachusetts’ larger casino expansion puzzle (read: MGM Springfield and Wynn Boston Harbor). In contrast, from a Connecticut perspective, PPC’s ‘recapturing’ of gambling dollars represents a threat and may foreshadow increased cross-border competition for gambling dollars, especially with MGM Springfield slated to open in September 2018. 

For Massachusetts coverage on SEIGMA’s Economic Impacts Report, read here

For Connecticut coverage on SEIGMA’s Economic Impacts Report, read here

    Data Spotlight

    Rachel Volberg, Principal Investigator of the SEIGMA-MAGIC projects, details findings from a California survey looking at relative risk factors for problem gambling. Find the abstract here. If interested in a full copy, please contact Dr. Volberg at: rvolberg@schoolph.umass.edu