Winning, losing, and breaking even : new casinos' effects on economic development impacts of existing casinos

The number of casinos has grown substantially since 1990 as states and localities try to find new tax revenue and jobs. After some initial successes across the United States and Canada, the strategy has become even more popular. With a business so dependent on tourists, how has the spread of casino gambling affected the returns communities get from hosting casinos? Broadly speaking when neighboring areas pursue the same economic development strategy, is any economic development actually occurring or are benefits just being transferred from one to the other? This analysis addresses that question and provides some preliminary evidence. Casinos have positively impacted economic conditions at the county level, though the benefits are strongest in the early stages of the casino's existence. Competition with other casinos has had negative effects on the tax revenue individual casinos pay to states. More importantly, casino competition has negatively affected economic development impacts of existing casinos, though in most cases the net benefits are still positive.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Hunter, Gerald Paul

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Paul Osterman.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59742

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59742