Counties with Casino Gambling Experience Increased Crime Over Time

Tuesday, June 15, 1999

WRITER: David Dodson, 706/542-3527, [email protected] CONTACT: David Mustard, 706/542-3624, [email protected]

Joint release from the University of Georgia and the University of Illinois
NATIONWIDE STUDY FINDS COUNTIES WITH CASINO GAMBLING EXPERIENCE INCREASED CRIME OVER TIME

ATHENS, Ga. -- Nearing the June 18 release date for the final report of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, a new, non-sponsored university study concludes that counties with casino gambling have an 8 percent higher crime rate on average than counties without casinos. The study found that higher crime rates donít occur immediately, but typically begin emerging in the third year after a casino opens in a community.

"We conclude that casinos increase property crime and violent crime, with the exception of murder, and that the effect on crime increases over time," said David B. Mustard, an economics professor in the University of Georgiaís Terry College of Business and one of the studyís authors. "Some studies have argued that casinos can lower crime rates by offering improved job opportunities, but we find that the crime risk factors that casinos attract outweigh any deterrents."

Mustard said the working paper, which he co-authored with University of Illinois economics professor Earl L. Grinols, is "by far the most exhaustive study of casinos and crime to date -- both in terms of the number of counties we studied and the time period analyzed."

AUTHOR BIOS

David B. Mustard is a professor of economics in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, where he has been a faculty member since 1997. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. His research has focused heavily on crime, including the impacts of gun laws. He is co-editing a volume of a journal devoted to casino gambling.

Earl L. Grinols is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has been on the faculty since 1984. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was one of the first scholars to recommend in testimony before Congress that a national commission be formed to study gamblingís impact on American society.

Cynthia Hunt Dilley is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois.

"Casinos and Crime" can be found on the Web at: http://www.cba.uga.edu/~dmustard/casinos.pdf