Years after the state legalized casinos, a new survey finds there has not been a significant uptick in problem gambling in the years that followed.
That was among the findings presented to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Wednesday, April 3.
The survey was conducted by the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts research team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and built on another survey released in 2015.
The goal – to “determine whether and how gambling attitudes, gambling behavior, and problem gambling prevalence changed in Massachusetts following the introduction of casinos.”
Throughout the presentation, data from 2013 and ‘14, before the casinos opened and sports betting arrived, was compared against newer responses from between 2021 and ‘22.
The first venue, Plainridge Park Casino, opened in 2015, with MGM Springfield coming online three years later, and Encore Boston Harbor soon after that.
Principal Investigator Dr. Rachel Volberg, a research professor at UMass Amherst, walked the state gaming commissioners through the findings.
“We hypothesized that problem gambling would be higher in 2021 compared to 2013, reflecting the increase in gambling availability,” she said. “However, this hypothesis was not supported, as the prevalence of problem gambling did not change significantly between the two surveys.”
The surveys are part of a mandate issued by the state, under the 2011 law that expanded gambling in Massachusetts.
Part of the law requires the MGC establish an “annual research agenda” in order to build an understanding of the impacts of new gambling venues.
With a sample size just over 6,000, Volberg’s team found 1.4 percent of the state’s adult population were considered problem or pathological gamblers in the latest survey, compared to 2 percent nearly eight years ago.
“We estimate that somewhere between 54,000 and 114,000 Massachusetts adults were problem gamblers in 2021,” Volberg said.
It was a similar story for at-risk gamblers. 8.4 percent were considered at-risk in 2013, a figure ticking up only slightly to 8.5 in 2021.
In the same survey, the team also found the number of people who think gambling is too widely available shot up.
The latest data shows 67.5 percent of respondents believed that to be the case, compared to 15.6 percent in the last survey.
Meanwhile, the presentation highlighted a drop-off in awareness of gambling problem prevention ads.
Compared to 41 percent in 2013, only 20.9 percent said they had seen or heard about media campaigns to prevent gambling problems over the past year.
“Doesn't this present a real opportunity to the commission to push out these great services, to - put more light on it and, perhaps, make sure that - we want to meet them where they are - people know these things exist,” said interim chair of the MGC, Jordan Maynard.
Volberg later highlighted that in fiscal year 2022, some 1,378 calls were made to the Massachusetts Problem Gambling Helpline, while 56,455 unique visitors made their way to the helpline’s new website.
Other bits from the study highlighted Wednesday included a general decline in gambling participation for most types of gambling, due in-part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
73.1 percent of respondents in the pre-casino survey indicated they took part in some gambling. The latest survey found 60.2 percent of Massachusetts residents took part in gambling activities over the past year.
However, while most types of gambling activities have declined in some form, daily lottery games and online gambling appeared to avoid the trend.
Also according to the study, 15.7% of Massachusetts adults reported visiting casinos to gamble in 2021.
"Of these, about one-third only gambled at Massachusetts casinos, about one-quarter only gambled at out-of-state casinos (mostly Connecticut and Rhode Island) and the remainder gambled at casinos both in Massachusetts and out-of-state," the study stated.
The latest report also notes that there has been a much longer trend when it comes to declines in gambling across North America.
A section of the reports notes that rates were believed to have "peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s and have been declining ever since.”
Speaking with WAMC, Volberg says recovery rates for gambling post-pandemic are something she’ll be keeping an eye on.
“What I'm going to be looking at, and looking at very carefully, is what's the recovery rate,” she said. “Does gambling participation go back up? Does it exceed pre-2021 levels? What kinds of gambling do people end up doing?”
Volberg added that more reports are on the way – including research on the impact of advertising on gambling behavior in Massachusetts.
Other reports will cover the quality of jobs at the state’s casinos, as well as what she says will be a brief report looking at the early economic impacts of sports betting in Massachusetts.
Mobile sports betting started in the Bay State in 2023.
