SPRINGFIELD – A report from The University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences (SPHHS) for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has indicated the presence of casino gaming in Western Massachusetts has not increased the issue of problem gaming.

The report was compiled by the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) group at the school.

The recently released report included a number of conclusions based on the research about the effects of the casino before the pandemic hit.

The report included data from November of 2019, which indicated gambling participation was seen as having increased from 70.9 percent to 73.8 percent with state lottery revenues dropping slightly from 62 percent to 61.2 percent.

The study indicated there had been “no significant changes by gender, except any casino gambling for males and females; no significant changes by race/ethnicity, except any casino gambling for Blacks/Hispanics and Whites/Others and no significant changes by age, except any casino gambling for those aged 50-64 and 65-plus.”

While the issue of the increase of problem gaming was an important consideration years ago with the state-wide referendum on casino gaming, Rachel Volberg, principal investigator of the SEIGMA study and research professor in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, said Massachusetts residents were already aware of the nature of casino gaming.

“It appears to be an already exposed population as far as casino gambling is concerned,” Volberg explained. “The Massachusetts population is far from naïve when it comes to casino gambling. States surrounding Massachusetts, including Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, have had casino gambling for decades prior to the introduction of casino gambling in Massachusetts. Lengthy exposure means harmful effects may have abated over time, even in a population that has experienced recent local expansion.”

According to the report, “About 59 percent of casino patrons came from Massachusetts (most of them from the Springfield area), and 41 percent from mostly nearby states. Less than 1 percent of patrons were international.”

The report noted that people in lower economic brackets spend more of their income on gambling.  It read, “The percentage of the patrons with the lowest household incomes (less than $30,000 per year) spent proportionally more on gambling (30 percent) compared to their prevalence in the general adult population of Massachusetts. An important social issue concerns whether people with lower incomes contribute disproportionately more to gambling revenues than people with higher incomes.”

Yet the casinos did not seem to harm other businesses. According to Thomas Peake, senior research analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute, the SEIGMA partner responsible for economic and fiscal impact research, “most casino patrons did not shift their spending toward the casino and away from other businesses in Massachusetts.”

Ronn Johnson, president and CEO, Martin Luther King, Jr. Family Services, is quoted as saying “But as I interact with the public, people have expressed they have family members and friends who love gambling, [and that] has increased since the casino has been here because [it is] so accessible.”

Frank Robinson, vice president, Public Health and Community Relations, Baystate Health Systems, told the researchers, “The places where local people purchase lottery products (i.e., keno, scratch tickets) are like ‘little gambling parlors’ and those people frequent those lottery outlets just as much after as they did before the casino was open ... this constituency of folks continue to visit the bodegas where they can see their friends, visit with the same set of people, and it becomes a social gathering place. The casino has not filled that role.”

MGM Springfield received high marks for providing local jobs. “MGM did do a good job of hiring locally and they hired quite a diverse workforce with a significant number of people who had been unemployed or underemployed previously,” Volberg said, principal investigator of the SEIGMA study and research professor in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences.

Other facts the study established include the following:

• 41 percent from the host and surrounding communities (18 percent Springfield, 23 percent surrounding communities); 18 percent from other MA locations, 41 percent were from outside of MA

• Gender fairly equal number of men (52 percent) vs. women (47 percent)

• Race/ethnicity: majority White (68 percent), smaller number Hispanic (17 percent), Black (6 percent), and Asian (5 percent) patrons

• Age: majority (60 percent) was middle-aged (35-64), with more younger patrons (23 percent age 21-34) than older patrons (18 percent age 65 or older)

• Annual household incomes varied: 16 percent less percent $30,000; 18 percent $30,000-
$49,999; 32 percent $50,000-$99,999; 35 percent $100,000+

• Employment: majority (71 percent) employed, almost one-fifth (18 percent) retired

 • 19 percent of all patrons reported this was their first visit; 54 percent reported two to three times a month; and 33 percent reported visiting once a week or more.