Casino Gambling Revenue On the Rise Says Study

When Melissa Kearney was studying for a doctorate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, she'd occasionally stop at a nearby convenience store for orange juice or something else.

Inside, she was fascinated to see mostly working people buying state lottery and various gambling scratch-off tickets. Since then, Ms. Kearney has become an expert on the economics of gambling, writing scholarly studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

In the past three decades, gambling has exploded in the United States. "Legalized gambling has grown from a limited activity to one that is extremely commonplace," notes Kearney.

Government decisions - state, local, or federal - have largely determined the size and form of legalized gambling, she points out.

A current question in Washington: Should there be any effort to restrain the rapid growth of Internet gambling? The industry bookkeeper, Christiansen Capital Advisors, estimates the "gross annual wager" in US casinos, lotteries, pari-mutuals, legal bookmaking, charitable bingo and games, Indian reservations, and on the Internet at $73 billion in 2003. That's the revenue of the "gaming" industry after deducting gamblers' winnings.

June 20, 2006
Posted By Larry Rutherford
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com    Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!

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