Gambling Crime Statistics
In the midst of an economic crisis, the U.S. gambling industry continues to grow–and so does the debate over its connection to crime.
- Gambling Crime Statistics United States
- Casino Crime Statistics
- Gambling And Crime Rate Statistics
- Gambling And Crime Statistics
Even the American Gaming Association agrees that gambling addiction is a social problem. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that a third of addicted gamblers had been arrested for.
It's a familiar, and sad, story: a 41-year-old housekeeper in Bangor, Maine, forged $40,000 in checks belonging to elderly people in the assisted-living home where she worked, then gambled it away at Hollywood Slots, a cavernous 1,000-slot-machine establishment that dominates one side of Bangor, an old, poor, church-spired New England town.
- Created Date: 7/18/2017 2:30:53 PM.
- Statistics about the Nevada Gaming Control Board. List of Excluded Persons Listing of persons who are required to be excluded or ejected from licensed gaming establishments that conduct pari-mutuel wagering or operate any horse race book, sports pool or games, other than slot machines only.
- Dubuque police agree with federal authorities in Iowa who say fraud cases investigated since 1996 link crime to gambling. The Associated Press 11/18/97 KS - Gambling debts of more than $100,000 prompted a woman's botched bank robbery attempt that led to an eight-hour hostage situation on New Year's Eve. Louis Post Dispatch AP 1/6/00.
She pleaded guilty, blaming an addiction to gambling, and in 2008 received a three-year prison term.
But doesn’t Hollywood Slots deserve some blame? While mob-infested gambling largely belongs to another era, the nationwide proliferation of casinos continues to raise the question of whether such establishments create or enable desperate gambling addicts who break the law to support their habit.
The alleged link between casinos and crime, in fact, is bitterly debated across the country, particularly in financially stressed towns or states where lucrative gambling concessions provide needed revenue. A definitive resolution is unlikely any time soon, since attempts to scientifically prove (or disprove) the connection are usually trumped by moral, financial or political issues.
Meanwhile, the glitter of Las Vegas has spread to nearly every state. The United States has the dubious distinction of harboring the most casinos in the world–705, counting the 216 listed by the National Indian Gaming Association and the 489 represented by the American Gaming Association, the Washington lobby groups respectively for Indian and “commercial” casinos. France, the number-two country, has fewer than 200.
Las Vegas’s gold glitters in Washington, too. The spread of gambling casinos had Capitol Hill concerned about crime a few years ago, but the issue no longer excites much controversy–and that just may have something to do with the fact that the gambling lobby has become a powerful force in national politics. Congressional and presidential candidates alone received $28 million from gambling interests in the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Capitol Hill debate on gambling now is on whether to legalize it on the internet.
But at the local level the anti-gambling troops work hard to keep the casinos and crime issue alive. The check-forger story was publicized by CasinosNo, a Maine organization that battles against perennial proposals for new casinos in the state. The group also drew attention recently to the fact that Bangor's crime rate jumped 26 per cent in the three years since the casino opened. In contrast, the group notes, two bigger Maine cities, Portland and Lewiston, experienced crime declines during that period.
“I don’t know if the crime rate increase is directly related to the casino,” says spokesman Dennis Bailey, “but it should be studied before we bring more slot machines to Maine.”
Next door in New Hampshire, Jim Rubens, chairman of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, doesn’t feel more study is needed. “It’s a fact” that casinos bring crime, he says flatly. New Hampshire currently has no casinos, but it's not for lack of trying. According to Rubens, gambling interests have spent millions of dollars in lobbying activities and advertising to try to get the legislature to legalize them.
As proof of his allegation about crime, Rubens cites the comprehensive national study, “Casinos, Crime, and Community Costs,” published in 2006 in TheReview of Economics and Statistics, a prestigious academic journal produced by Harvard and MIT. Like the leaders of other grassroots anti-gambling groups around the country, Rubens considers it the ultimate scientific authority on the subject.
The study by economists Earl Grinols, now of Baylor University, and David Mustard, of the University of Georgia, examined crime rates in every county in the nation covering a period of 20 years – from 1977, just before the first casinos outside Nevada were built in Atlantic City, to 1996. It concluded that opening a casino led to local crime increases averaging eight percent. (Grinols says the 10-year gap between data collection and publication is “not uncommon” in academia and the data didn’t become less relevant during that period since the study was of basic behavior.)
Grinols and Mustard’s findings made news, but not surprisingly they failed to persuade anyone on the other side of the issue. While anti-gambling forces used the findings to promote their case (United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, that state’s chief anti-casino group, has numbers from the study flashing on its website’s home page), the American Gaming Association was notably unworried. “In our minds the issue has been settled,” says Holly Thomsen, the associaton’s communications director.
How has it been settled? Despite the critics’ allegations and the Grinols-Mustard study, Thomsen says that on this issue people have voted with their feet. “People are pretty happy” with casinos, she says. She adds in an email: “The fears people have about crime accompanying a casino coming into a community simply don’t materialize once the casinos are actually there. In countless gaming jurisdictions across the country, law enforcement officers actually working in the community and around the casinos say crime hasn’t gone up.”
That lack of fear, at least, can be documented. Despite the recession (or perhaps because of it), the casino industry–with its lure of easy riches–continues to spread across the U.S. Kansas legalized casinos in 2007. In 2008 Colorado extended casino hours and legalized more games, Missouri abolished the casino loss limit, and Maryland legalized slots parlors. Ohio approved four big casinos just last month.
The gross annual wager
The prospect of tax revenues and casino jobs smoothed the way. Casinos have become a big, big business. Ten years ago legal gambling – including casinos, state lotteries, and horse tracks – was about a $50-billion enterprise. Now, according to industry analyst Christensen Capital Advisors, the “gross annual wager” of the United States is almost $100 billion, far ahead of spending on movies, spectator sports and theme parks.
Casinos raked in the most money, according to the American Gaming Association: $63 billion in 2008 in 45 states, toting up commercial and Indian casinos and the racetrack-related and slots-dominated “racinos” (Maine’s Hollywood Slots is one of these). Fifty-five million adults visited a casino in 2008, the trade association says – a quarter of the adult population.
With those numbers, it's easy to see why Washington has stayed out of the fray. “Nobody wants to take this issue on,” laments Rep. Frank Wolf, a conservative Virginia Republican. With both parties taking money from casino interests, he adds, “It’s a bipartisan problem.”
Ten years ago Wolf and other lawmakers opposed to casino expansion had more sway. Wolf was one of the moving forces behind the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, whose 1999 report stressed that “pathological” gamblers have a tendency to commit crimes to pay for their addiction. (Gambling addiction is a sickness, according to the American Psychiatric Association, and criminal activity is a symptom.) The report called for a 'pause' in casino expansion in order to provide more time for research. That didn't happen, but the 2006 Grinols-Mustard study filled in some of the gaps.
In addition to documenting increased crime rates in counties where casinos had opened, the study found that nearby counties also felt the impact and that a casino didn’t just move crime from elsewhere toward the casino’s county but created it. Grinols and Mustard had examined the seven serious FBI “index” offenses: aggravated assault, robbery, murder, burglary, auto theft, larceny, and rape. All except murder showed a significant increase.
The 2006 study remains the most definitive yet, says John Kindt, a legal policy professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who publishes papers on the social costs of gambling. “There’s nothing that can touch it,” he says. Dennis Delay, an economist who researches gambling issues for the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, adds: “The Grinols-Mustard study is probably state of the art.”
Other studies, though, suggest the link is arguable. University of Nevada at Reno professor Grant Stitt and his colleagues conducted federally financed research published in 2003 that compared crime-rate change in six “new casino” and six non-casino communities. Little difference was found. Stitt calls his own work the definitive one on the issue, with 19 academic papers resulting from it.
And pro-gambling forces argue that, statistically, reported crime increases around casinos are a result of bad number-crunching. In calculating the crime rate of a casino town, they say, the number of visitors to the casino should be added to the number of local residents, which Grinols and Mustard didn’t do. But if that’s done, the crime rate–the number of crimes in a given area divided by the population (generally expressed as crimes per 100,000 people)–usually drops significantly. This accurately gauges “the risk of being victimized” for both groups, says Douglas Walker, an economist at the College of Charleston.
Complicating the professorial part of this debate, though, and provoking finger-pointing about bias, some academics take money from the gambling industry (like Walker) and others are out front with their religious perspective (like Grinols and Mustard, both active in the Association of Christian Economists).
Then there’s the difficulty in singling out casinos as a factor in the overall crime picture. In Bangor, for example, law enforcement authorities and city officials attribute their rising crime rate to an increase in the number of methadone clinics as well as the worsening economy–not the local casino.
Grinols maintains, however, there’s no dispute that gambling causes crime. The only questions, he says, “are how big is the impact and can you get a good measurement.” Even the American Gaming Association agrees that gambling addiction is a social problem.The National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that a third of addicted gamblers had been arrested for a crime, compared to four percent of non-gamblers. A federally funded study by researchers at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas of people arrested for crimes in Las Vegas and Des Moines reported in 2004 that nearly a third of pathological gamblers “admitted having committed robbery in the previous year. Approximately 13 percent had assaulted someone for money.”
On the other hand, that study noted that addicted gamblers tend to be drug and alcohol abusers and often had been in trouble with the law before they became addicted to gambling—a picture that fits with the claim that casinos don’t directly cause crime.
The real issue, however, may not be the individual gambler's addiction–but the government's. “Most gambling policies in the U.S. are guided principally by the anticipated economic benefits,” says a 2006 New Mexico State University study on the impact of Indian gambling in that state. Kindt, the Illinois professor, argues that government has been “corrupted” by casino money.
Whenever casino opponents get discouraged as they contemplate this fat wallet and the industry’s widespread support, they look for inspiration to the long, arduous battle to reign in the tobacco industry.
“This is going to go the same way as smoking,” says Tom Grey, a retired Methodist minister who is spokesman and field director for the Washington, D.C.-based Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation.
Grey foresees lawsuits against gambling interests similar to the successful suits against tobacco companies for pushing cigarettes on consumers despite the companies’ knowledge that nicotine is addictive. Although he concedes that at present his group is having trouble raising money, he says the gambling industry has overextended itself like Napoleon invading Russia, and now “the Russian winter is setting in.”
He concludes: “They’re trapped now.”
Maybe so. But considering the industry’s continuing growth the odds do not appear to be in the opponents’ favor.
Lance Tapley is a freelance investigative reporter based in Maine.
Photo by tricky via Flickr.
Even though gambling is considered a “fun” activity, it can soon turn into an uncontrollable addiction, much like alcohol or drug dependency.
When gambling turns from enjoyment to addiction, it can ruin your life.
According to the United States National Library of Medicine, those who have issues with impulse control can easily develop a gambling addiction without realizing it.
Gambling addictions are often more common in people who have struggled with another form of addiction, such as alcohol or drug abuse.
There are any number of gambling addiction statistics that show how common gambling addictions are, and how it can negatively impact your life.
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1. People with an alcohol abuse history are 23 times more likely to have a gambling addiction
In many cases, alcohol abuse and gambling addiction go hand in hand.
Studies have shown that people who struggle with alcohol addiction or have a history of alcohol abuse in their family history are 23 times more likely to become addicted to gambling.
Many people find that alcohol and gambling are connected; alcoholics who gamble use drinking as a form of support to celebrate their wins and drown out their losses when gambling, which is a common event in casinos where alcohol is free to those who keep gambling.
Those who are suffering from alcoholism and a gambling addiction find that therapy and medication can stem the impulse control that contributes to gambling addictions.
2. Percentage of American folks who have gambled each year: 80 percent!
When people try to escape their everyday lives, they most commonly find places that offer a chance to go out of the norm of their usual routine as well as a place that offers visual and mental stimulation.
In these cases, many people, as many as 80 percent, have admitted that they find casinos and online gambling sites as methods of satisfying that particular urge for entertainment.
Unfortunately, these events can become dangerous habits that can affect your daily life.
Monetary losses from gambling far outweigh the wins, which can lead to destructive behaviors that attempt to “make up” for what you have lost.
3. Around 5 gamblers out of 100 has a gambling addiction
Even though almost all of the people who have admitted that they have gambled at least once in their lives never win, they will also admit to indulging the fantasy of what would happen if they did hit that big win.
That possibility is often the trigger that will turn entertainment into an addiction.
Out of every 100 people who gamble on a regular basis, at least five of them have a serious addiction to it.
Having a serious gambling addiction can lead to many losses in your life, such as bankruptcy, loss of employment, and the destruction of personal relationships.
4. 750,000 individuals aged 14-21 are addicted to gambling
While gambling addiction is often viewed as an “adult” problem, recent research suggests that it affects young people as well as adults.
Over three-quarters of a million of young people aged 14 to 21 have a gambling addiction.
According to the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, over 80 percent of teenagers aged 12 to 17 admit to gambling in the past year; more than 30 percent of them admit that they have gambled in the last week.
Based on the research, it is obvious that gambling is reaching youth as much as it is affecting adults.
Many adults, often parents of the gambling teens may see their gambling as harmless, not taking it as seriously as an alcohol or drug addiction.
Even though youth who gamble can start for innocent reasons, such as a friendly bet over a sports game, it can quickly escalate into an addiction.
5. Gambling addiction massively increases criminal inclinations
Many people with gambling addictions honestly do not think they are doing anything wrong, and they will report never having broken the law to gamble.
However, recent studies have connected gambling to an increase in criminal activity.
Researchers from Georgia State University report that those with a criminal record are far more likely to develop a gambling addiction than those who don’t have a criminal record.
There are many reasons for such a development.
Perhaps the person feels the same rush while gambling that they do when they commit a crime.
According to the study, about half of gamblers who have a criminal record will admit to committing crimes, such as theft or robbery, in order to find a way to keep gambling.
6. Gambling addiction increases chances of violent crimes
The debate between the connections between gambling addictions and the increase in violent crime is one that is hotly debated between pro-gambling and anti-gambling lobbies.
While crime is a global problem, the fact remains that many communities who have gambling casinos also saw a rise in violent crimes, particularly larceny and car theft.
According to the Washington Post, in most communities, these crimes saw a 10% increase in places that house at least one major casino.
A study conducted by researchers from Baylor University and the University of Illinois average that the increase in casinos directly correlates with the increase in crime rates.
These types of crimes don’t just affect those who lost their property or those who commit the crimes.
The same study also estimates that in counties where the crime rates increase because of the presence of casinos, additional public safety expenses can cost everyone in the population an average of $65.
7. A gambling addict may be suffering from mental disorders
Most people believe that gambling addictions are a form of risk-taking that develops into a major problem; while this may be true to an extent, many gambling addicts suffer from mental disorders or are suffering from pain in which gambling is a release.
According to BBC News, a woman turned to gambling as the grief over the loss of her son overwhelmed her.
While using gambling as a distraction isn’t always a bad thing, in those who are suffering from mental illness or a psychotic break, the distraction of gambling can turn into a full-blown addiction.
Many addictions arise from something that you feel that you are missing in your life or as a way to cope with devastating loss, but there is help available to those who need it.
There are healthier ways to grieve than through gambling.
8. Most gambling addicts are aged 20-30
While gambling addiction is a problem that can reach people of all ages, recent studies have shown that most gambling addicts are between the ages of 20 and 30.
There is no hard evidence as to why that is, but there are a few factors that can contribute to the young adult gambler.
First of all, there can be a newfound freedom associated with young adulthood.
It could also be connected to an increase in disposable income that many young adults have as they begin their careers.
The combination of freedom and new income in young adults can turn a pastime into an addiction.
9. In American colleges, over 6 percent of students gamble regularly
Gambling addictions are also common in college students.
According to the National Center for Responsible Gambling, over 6% of college students gamble on a regular basis.
When college students become regular gamblers, it can severely impact their lives, creating mental health issues, suffering grades, and insurmountable debt.
The research suggests that younger adults have trouble controlling their impulses which can attract them to an addiction to gambling.
This connection to impulse control can also contribute to college students indulging in other risky behaviors, such as alcohol and substance abuse.
Although 6% of college students report having a gambling addiction, the research suggests that most of them will grow out of the problems as their mental state matures, but some continue the addiction into adulthood.
10. Gambling addiction can be a side-effect of PTSD
It has been proven that gambling addicts often have another mental illness that can contribute to their impulse to gamble.
The connection between gambling and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been studied closely, and those who have PTSD often become compulsive gamblers.
There are other risky behaviors that they also indulge in, such as alcohol and drug abuse, self-mutilation, and eating disorders.
One particular connection between gamblers who suffer from PTSD, especially servicemen and former servicemen, is that the rush from gambling not only provides the same feeling of danger that they used to endure every day, but it also provides a distraction from the mental symptoms of the condition.
11. 34 percent of gambling addiction treatment seekers have PTSD
Studies on the connection between gambling and PTSD prove that 34% of gamblers have PTSD.
Many men and women who have gambling addictions also have a range of other mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
When gamblers are diagnosed with both a gambling addiction and a disorder such as PTSD, it is very important to find a treatment facility that can treat both issues at the same time.
Finding the underlying cause of the psychological condition that is causing the addiction and the mental illness is the key to recovery.
12. Gambling addiction leads to mental illnesses
Over one-third of gamblers who are seeking treatment for their condition have also shown signs of having post-traumatic stress disorder.
While PTSD is not the only mental illness that many gamblers may have, there is a common behavioral connection between those gamblers who have mental illnesses.
Gambling can provide a focus or a distraction from those who have been suffering from depression, anxiety, or other emotional disorders.
In fact, gambling can itself lead to mental illness.
The behaviors expressed in gambling, the satisfaction of reaching a mental high, easily fades which can bring on other types of mental instability in trying to satisfy the urge to satisfy the next high.
13. Antisocial behavior and gambling addiction are related
Gambling Crime Statistics United States
Considering that most gambling occurs in public spaces such as casinos, you wouldn’t think that gambling would qualify as an antisocial behavior.
However, there is scientific evidence that antisocial behavior is linked to gambling addictions.
Having multiple addictions, such as alcohol abuse and a gambling addiction, at the same time is a sign of co-occurring disorder which is characterized as addictions that work together that can present as a form of antisocial behavior.
According to a study published in the United States National Library of Medicine, people who show examples of antisocial behavior, such as psychopathic inclinations and aggression, are more likely to become low-risk to pathological gamblers.
Luckily, these behaviors can be treated with therapy and medical intervention.
14. Gambling is just as addictive as substances
Gambling addiction has been connected to other addictions, such as substance abuse.
Those who suffer from a gambling disorder to such an extent that it completely overtakes their lives were called pathological gamblers, but as of 2013, the terminology has changed.
Casino Crime Statistics
According to the American Psychiatric Association, pathological gambling is now known as gambling disorder which is treated with the same methods as substance abuse.
Gambling And Crime Rate Statistics
With research, the American Psychiatric Association has identified the same characteristics in both gambling addiction and substance abuse.
With proper treatment, both gambling addicts and substance abusers can find relief from their addictions.
15. Gambling addiction affects the mind just like substance addiction
Much like substance abuse, many gambling addicts feel the mental stimulation that gambling provides.
Substance abusers use drugs and alcohol as a way to numb pain or distract themselves from their mental disorders, and they spend their time trying to feel that way again.
It is the same with gambling addicts; the same mental satisfaction between the rush of winning a bet or beating the odds is very similar to substance abusers who chase their next high.
Gambling addiction is just as serious as other addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Gambling And Crime Statistics
With proper diagnosis by a physician and treatment through a professional therapist can help you understand why you gamble and how you can prevent relapse.